The origin of Videospirit
by Videospirit
Summary: The story of how a young boy named Seth came to possess Unreal Powers, and all the troubles that befall him. A crossover of A forum based story and my own world.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1: The Girl

The blue haired woman looked around the crowded airplane, her great big blue eyes shining while fancy perfumes and the stale smell of airplane food assaulted her nose, and examining the people from many different places, completely absorbed in their own activities. "And they said something was going to happen on this ride."

Suddenly a small child, five, maybe six years old, sitting 3 rows ahead of her points out the window, "Mommy what's that bright light?" The woman glances out her window and suddenly focuses on a streaming orange beam flying right at the plane.

The streaming beam of orange energies slams into the plane causing it to explode and the TV screen cuts to a news reporter, "That was the fifth plane shot down this year and is believed to be linked to the terrorist organization called the Pyronian syndicate, their motives are still unclear and we hope to have them captured by the end of the month. In other news Damian Drake, CEO of Dimenstra-Tek corporation celebrated his 35th birthday today at his fund raising banquet in-"

The blond-haired boy watching the screen suddenly averts his attention to the voice calling up to him from downstairs, "Seth, turn that bloody Television off already; you're going to be late for school! You've already missed breakfast. You're lucky I packed your lunch for you. You're backpack's on the table." The blond haired boy comes sliding down the stair railing while donning a blue and white Hawaiian shirt with a golden dragon on it and tucking it beneath his plain black jogging pants. He kicks off the wall at the bottom of the stairs and, not landing on his feet more than two seconds, runs towards the kitchen of the average five bedroom house.

A brown-haired, middle-aged woman wearing an apron looks over at him, "Seth, how many times have I told you not to be so reckless in the house?"

Seth grabs his backpack off the table and tosses it in the air jumping into the straps while swiping a piece of toast from a dark-haired girl, who is about six with two big dimples on either side of her face's plate. "Sorrymominahurrygottagobye."

The girl looks up at him and yells, "HEY, give that back!" but he's already flung the door open and is running out.

A green-haired girl with her long hair arrayed in two long streams on either side of her head looked from one side of the street to the other, holding onto a cat plushie, shivering slightly, "Alright Chibi-Miloe. We can do this, go into the store and ask them to get brother a bag of milk."

She slowly walked across the busy city street in one of the older neighborhoods of an obviously well developed city. Cars screeched to a halt as she dodged her way through like a maniac and took off to full speed again as she got all the way to the other side, sighed, and turned to look back at the cars. Seth came running around the corner looking at the store without paying attention and slammed into the girl who spun around and lost her grip on her cat plushie who flew into the middle of the street as a pickup truck came roaring towards it, "NO CHIBI-MILOE!" Suddenly Seth wasn't sure what had happened but the pickup truck stopped moving forward and flew into the air, flipping eight times before slamming into a fire hydrant on the other side of the street. The driver crawls out of a window holding his head as the girl runs onto the street, grabs the plushie, goes back to the street and gives Seth a very evil glare.

Seth looks at the girl and smiles weakly while putting his hand on the back of his head, "I'm sorry about that. I wasn't looking where I was going and-"

Seth stopped speaking as the girl stared at him with a very strange, angry, and inquisitive look on her face, said "You're a VERY BAD MAN," and stormed off, dropping a card behind her. Her pink dress was ruffled from all the running. She seemed to completely forget why she'd come in the first place.

Seth picked up the card and looked at it. "Seishero Nanami. This is a student card from that school for gifted children up on the north bank. I wonder what she was doing way up here." Seth walks into the store on the corner as a man wearing a suit and black shades sitting in the passenger side of a black Sedan rolls up his window and drives off.

Seth looks at the old man wearing an orange yellow and blue Hawaiian shirt behind the counter playing with a gold tooth and smiles, "Hey Ratchet, you see what just happened? Some pickup truck tried dodging this girl who went to grab her toy and flipped eight times."

Ratchet looks at Seth through a pair of dinky glasses with one lens missing and speaks with a very crooked, high-pitched voice, "Yes, that was very odd indeed. So let me guess. You are here because the shipment of games has just gotten in?"

Seth smiles and begins rummaging through old piles of games, "You know me, but there's one specific game I'm looking for: Masters of the Videan Triad. You have it, right?"

Ratchet looks at Seth and straightens his glasses, as the nose pieces seems to be broken and they continually slip, "Young man, your ability to know exactly what games I get in at this old collectors shop every single month never ceases to amaze me. This is a very special game my friend. Never even been opened. only one remaining of 12 copies printed in the U.S. too. But I doubt you have the money for this one."

Seth pulls out a credit card, "I'm not the one who needs to worry about the money. Charge it to this card. My dad's got plenty of money to spare."

Ratchet frowns slightly and runs the card through a rarely used scanner and hands Seth a plastic bag, with a logo of a smiley face playing video games and Ratchet's Clanks written over the top on the side of it, with a cartridge inside. "Now hurry off to School or you're going to be late again."

Seth was already stuffing the bag into his completely stuffed backpack and running as fast as he could go.

A brown-haired man in a lab coat is staring at a Black man in a white suit while looking down at a homeless man strapped to a table, "But sir, if this doesn't work it's murder. Gregin X only works on children. No adult has ever survived being injected."

The black man just shuffles the collar of his suit and breathes out a big puff of smoke from his large, brown cigar. "Now doctor, be reasonable. No one's going to miss some poor homeless man. Now give him the injection."

The doctor looks from the man to the injection then hands a needle full of glowing green liquid to the black man, "Fine." The black man then puts it into the unconscious man's arm. His eyes flare open and the color leaves them, making them completely white. He then falls dead.

The black man frowns, "I guess we'll just have to improve the formula. We're counting on your work, Dr. Nanami. Clean this mess up." The black slowly walks out of the room. His many rolls jiggle as he moves.

The doctor looks around the lab, "I signed up for this job to help people, not kill them." The doc walks over to a cupboard, opens it up and pulls out every flammable substance he can find. He then grabs a vial of the green liquid and pours it down the drain before grabbing all the electronics and research papers, throwing them into a pile, pouring the flammable liquids over them and lighting a match.

Seth goes running into his first period class just as the late bell rings. A very orderly woman whose hair looks like something from a bad 60's movie coughs as he walks in then speaks with one of those high pitched voices that is a cross between a tuning fork and nails on a chalkboard being spoken through a duck whistle, "Tardiness is not exceptible behaviour, Mr. Davis. You'll have to spend lunch in detention thinking about ways to get here on time again. Now, as I was saying, we've received a new exchange student and I'd like you all to help him out as much as you can as his English isn't as good as ours." A short Egyptian boy is standing in front of the class and gazing around as if he'd really rather be somewhere else. A necklace with a green stone on it hangs around his neck and his black hair and hazel eyes give him an ominous aura.

Seth grumbles and sits down in his seat next to a tall, black-haired boy with brown eyes and a huge smirk across his face, "Seth, no wonder no girls want to take a chance on you, you'd be so late they'd think you stood them up."

Seth gets a very red face and crosses his arms on his desk, "Shut up. Cory, if you weren't my cousin I'd kick your ass."

The teacher glares at the two boys, "If you two don't stop talking while I'm speaking you'll have another detention."

Cory and Seth are both sitting in the cafeteria eating lunch. Cory glances over at Seth, "You do remember you have a detention right?"

Seth swallows a huge mouthful of fries, takes a gulp of a coke and belches, "Yeah, but it's only a 20 minute so it can wait until I'm done eating."

Cory frowns. "You really need to stop being late all the time. Well, I'm done eating. See you later man." Cory gets up and leaves through a double door taking him outside. The bright sun glares down on him and makes the lush green grass on either side of the path he's on shine brightly. Cory sees the Egyptian boy sitting on a bench with his eyes closed when a scrawny little kid with four big friends walks up to the Egyptian boy and looks down on him. Cory slows down his pace to see what happens.

The little kid smirks. "Hey Egyptian kid. Hiro Moto." The boy's eyes open and he stares at the boy like a lion who's just been awoken from a nap. "You look pretty weak, kid. Are you like one of those Ethiopians who doesn't get fed. You want a sandwich, little Egyptiopian?"

Cory shakes his head and walks closer, "Hey Rowan, leave off the-"

Rowan suddenly screams and falls to the ground and starts bashing his arm against the ground and rubbing it in the grass, "Ahhh! Put it out, put it out! AHH! My arm's on fire! Somebody stop it!"

Hiro Moto just stands up and as he gets far away waves his hand and Rowan stops moving and looks at his perfectly fine arm with a horrified look on his face. Cory stares at the boy as he walks off then catches a faint green glow from a nearby sewer and walks off. Rowan stands up and with a face that looks like it's been crying and takes his goons someplace else. Cory goes up to the sewer and sees the grate off. Some construction equipment is laying around as if some men were working on it but were out on lunch break. Cory hops into the sewer and sees a green glow coming from a blocked pipe and takes a look at it, "Wow that's weird. Hmm…" Cory pulls a towel out of the pipe and a blast of glowing green water blasts him in the face, causing him to cough and sputter up the contents. "Gee whiz, that's the last time I go swimming around in the sewers." Cory climbs up a ladder and leaves the sewer, holding his head from a slight headache.

Seth looks around the detention hall, finishing the remnants of a juice box as he walks inside. A large ketchup stain trails down his shirt. He frowns as he sees who's in charge of the day's unluckies, "Great. I hope he doesn't lecture us on the history of the beetle again."

A scrawny, pointy-nosed man with very fine glasses looks at Seth as he walks in. "So nice o you to join us, Mr. Davis. Your detention period ends in 20 minutes so you'll be out at 12:35." The teacher keeps looking at his watch agitatedly as Seth takes a seat.

Seth glances at the other unluckies to wind up in the hall. A very tall and muscular boy is sitting in a corner with a coloring book (Hmm, I see one of Rowan's goons is in here.) Next to him sits a tall blond haired boy with a football jersey twiddling a pencil around his hand and beside Seth sits a very black and gloomy girl with white makeup and black eyeliner all over her body. (Nothing special today.) Suddenly Hiro Moto walks in and approaches the teacher who smiles as he sees him, "Ahh. Hiro Moto. Nice of you to come. I trust the rest of you can behave for a few minutes while I take a brief leave of you." The teacher gets up and walks out with Hiro Moto.

Seth looks at him as he walks away, "So that's the Egyptian kid's name... Hiro Moto, sounds like something from a bad anime. So Tristan, what are you doing here?"

The dark girl beside him looks over, "Nothing that's knowledge would benrfit you in any way, but if you must know I got caught spray painting the portables."

Seth smiles, "Where do you get all that paint? I mean, you've spray painted the gym roof, the portables five times, made a huge streaking logo down C hall, and covered over the star display."

Tristan frowns and glances at the clock lazily. "The star display room was someone else and you forgot the principal's house and the skate park, but I suppose those are off school property. Well, I'm out of here. If Mr. Thomson gets back, tell him you saw me leave at 12:31." Tristan stands up and leaves the class while Seth watches the clock turn and thinks about his newest game acquisition.

Seth walks out of school with his loaded backpack ready to go and stops and looks as something ducks behind a nearby wall. "School was boring today; I must be seeing things." He takes another step and this time he sees what it is peeking over the wall before it ducks down again.

Seishero Nanami is looking at her plushie and shaking it, "What do you mean he saw you? You're 2 inches tall!" Seishero shakes Chibi-Miloe and then sees two feet next to her and follows them all the way up to Seth's face, "Um. Hi there, mister."

Seth smiles and holds his hand out to Seishero, "Are you following me... Seishero, was it?"

Seishero jumps up and away from Seth, her pink dress spinning wildly as she does so, "So you did steal my card. You big meany! My daddy said only bad people steal things. And you're definitely a VERY BAD PERSON."

Seth holds his hands up and gets a concerned look on his face. "Hey, I didn't steal your card. You dropped it and if you hadn't run away so fast I might have given it back to you right then and there." Seth pulls the card out of his pocket. It is sweaty from being in there all day. Seishero grabs it and then screams and wipes it on the grass.

Seishero whimpers, "Don't stick up for him, Chibi-Miloe. Not only did he take Seishero's special card but he got it all dirty and greasy. We're leaving." Seishero stands up and starts to walk away then looks around and stops, "Uh oh. We're lost. Chibi-Miloe, what are you talking about? This isn't a nice man. We can't ask him for directions."

Seth laughs and rubs his hand through his hair. "You're very interesting. You know that? And I've got nothing to do right now so I could walk you home if you want."

Seishero jumps up, runs over, and bows, then shakes Seth's hand very quickly, "Oh thank you, thank you, thank you Mr. you're the bestest, greatest, nicest person in the whole world. Um, what's your name Mister? No wait, let me guess your name. Joey?" Seth shakes his head, "Sam, Eric, Bilbo? how about Kai?"

Seth laughs and steadies himself. "My name's Seth and where do you live?"

Seishero cranes her head and looks at Seth. "I don't like the name Seth. I shall call you Dubby Dub. Chibi-Miloe will still call you Seth, though." Seishero holds up her plushie. "Say hi, Chibi-Miloe."

Seth looks at the little plushie. "Hello there, Chibi-Miloe. So where do you live? Near the school for gifted children?"

Seishero looks at Seth funnily. "You mean Gregovich's? My daddy works there, so we live pretty close. I could find my way home from there."

Seth smiles and looks around. "Well, Gregovich's school is that way." Seth points to the Northeast. "So we'd better get started."

Seth begins to walk to the northeast and Seishero follows behind him. "Dubby Dub, this city is very big, isn't it?" Seishero looks at Seth. "... ahem ... ahem. I SAID, DUBBY DUB, THIS CITY IS VERY BIG, ISN'T IT?" Seishero gets a very mad expression on her face and a nearby fire hydrant's cap blows off sending water flying into the air and Seishero jumps.

Seth looks over, "Those fire hydrants aren't having any luck and who's this Dub- oh yeah. Well Sei, this city is very big. Do you know why Demstar's this big?" Seishero shakes her head and grabs Seth's hand after the fire hydrant exploded and Seth looks over at her (She's awfully immature for someone my age. But she's kinda cute.) "Well, after the new plague hit all the major cities healthy citizens fled the area and moved to the rural towns. Some of the people in this town managed to develop a vaccine to stop it and everyone flocked to this area after that. It's continued to expand ever since."

A black Sedan pulls up beside Seth and the window goes down. The man with black shades looks out. "Hello there, Seishero. Who's your new friend?"

Seishero looks over at the Sedan and scrunches her eyes, "I'm not talking to you, gooey goo. You made Chibi-Miloe angry!"

Seth looks at the man as he gets out of the Sedan with a very concerned look on his face. "Do you know this man, Seishero?" Seth takes a look around where he's at, surveying the area. They are standing on a long suspension bridge with lots of garbage littering the area. A cut bit of cable is lying next to the railing. (We're on the north bank bridge. This is just great.)

Seishero looks at him, "He works for my daddy's boss. I don't want to go with him."

The man lifts his enormous brown eyebrows up and down and slicks back his gelled short silver hair, "Now Seishero what would your dad say if he found you were being uncooperative. He's worried about you. You were supposed to come home two hours ago. And boy, you can leave now. We'll take care of Seishero from here."

Seth looks from this man to the two other thugs that get out of the car and he and Seishero back towards the edge of the bridge, "Now let's be reasonable here. I was giving the nice lady a walk home."(This doesn't look good. But I can't just let Seishero go with them)

The three men pull out pistols and cock them, "That wasn't a request, boy."

Seth looks at all the guns with a worried expression on his face and suddenly Cory runs up to him, completely oblivious to the three men, and holds a book up to Seth while panting slightly, "Hey Seth. You forgot this book in History class. Hey, who's your friend?"

A gun shot goes off and Cory looks down at his stomach which has a hole in it and is bleeding. Seishero screams, "GO AWAY YOU BIG meanies!"

The three men fly into the air and their guns go flying. The two larger thugs go over the side of the river and the shade-wearing one lands on top of the sedan and rolls down, shaking his neck as if he didn't even feel it. "That was a very bad move Seishero."

Seth looks down at Cory, who's passed out and clutching his stomach, then grabs the wire from the ground and looks at the shade wearing man cracking the wire like a whip and holding both ends of it. "You are so going to wish you hadn't done that."

The man readies two spiked gauntlets and looks at Seth with a smile on his face. "You really think you can take me, boy?" Seishero crouches in the corner, her green hair flowing down her legs while she hides with her face in her hands. Seth just stares the man down. Eventually he gets agitated. "I'd of thought you'd just charge at me but I guess I'd better go first. TAKE THIS." The man charges at Seth and Seth cracks the wire which wraps around the shaded mans leg and lurches up sending him flying over the rail behind Seth. Seth let's go of the wire before he gets dragged over behind him and watches the man fall into the river where his two thugs buddies swim over and all three of them look up at Seth before swimming towards the shore.

Seth runs over to Cory, who's eyes are open and is looking around confused. "Oh, Seth. I must of blanked out for a second. I had the weirdest dream where I got shot and died. Hmm… There's a whole in my shirt. That's odd. That's right where I thought the bullet went through, but there's no wound. Seth, I didn't get shot, did I?"

Seth grabs Cory in a bear hug, "Your alive, you fearless bastard. When three people are holding a gun to me you do not run in front of them! But what do you mean you have no wound?"

Seishero opens her eyes, looks around at Seth and Cory, sees the thugs gone and suddenly she pulls her student card out of her pocket and a hologram of Doctor Nanami appears above it, "Daddy, what's wrong. Why are your boss's friends trying to get me?"

The hologram looks at Seishero with a look of fear in its eyes, "Please tell me you didn't go with them. I've been trying to contact you all day but your card was inactive and I hope I'm not too late."

Seishero frowns, "I didn't want to go, but they tried to make me. Luckily, my new friend Seth scared them off."

The hologram's face shifts to a perplexed expression, "Seth? Who is this Seth? Never mind; you cannot come back home Seishero. Bad people are trying to make Daddy do something Daddy doesn't want to do and you need to stay safe. Find a good place to hide and if this Seth is a good person go with him. And remember to listen to Chibi-Miloe. I have to go now; someone's coming."

Seishero looks up and Seth and Cory are both staring at her. "Seth, that was my daddy. He says I can't go home anymore. What should I do?"


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Life isn't a Video Game

Seishero is holding onto Chibi-Miloe and looking down at the ground while Seth and Cory walk on either side of her. Seth sighs, "This is mad. I must be dreaming or something. This just doesn't make sense. Why did they just fly into the air? Why isn't there a wound where you got shot, Cory? What the hell are we supposed to do now?"

Cory sits down beside Seth and looks at him with faltering respect. "Snap out of it, Seth. You're the one who's always wishing life was like a video game, how much more exciting it would be if stuff like this happened. Well Earth to you, it's happened."

Seishero lets out a whimper, "You're going to take care of me, right Dubby Dub?"

Seth stands up and looks around. "You know what? You're right. This is exactly what I've been hoping for all my life, although I never actually expected it to happen. I have a plan. You know how the exchange student program just started, right? Well, my mom never reads anything I get her to sign as she's too busy. Seishero, I'm going to need you to pretend to be an exchange student from Japan when we get back to my house. Is that alright with you?"

Seishero stands up and smiles. "I get to go to your house? Yay, did you hear that, Chibi-Miloe? We get to stay at Dubby Dub's house." Seishero runs at Seth and wraps him in a hug, causing them both to fall to the ground.

Seth lays there stunned for a few seconds and then rolls to his feet. "Yeah, another thing. You can't be jumping on me or calling me Dubby Dub around other people. My name is Seth, alright?"

Seishero smiles. "Okay Dubby Dub, I'll be a good little girl."

Seth sighs, "That's good enough. Cory I'm going to need you to back me on this. Now let's get out of here; we've been dawdling too long and we don't want those thugs to come back."

Seth opens the door and peeks inside. His mother looks over from the table. "Seth. You're home awfully late. What were you up to?"

Seth opens the door slowly. "Oh, didn't you hear? That exchange student we signed up to house got here today and I was just showing her around town."

His mother is reading a newspaper and takes a few seconds to register the full extent of what was just said. "That's nice; you should be going out more often. All you do is sit around the house and... play... video...games. OFFERED TO HOUSE! WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?"

Seth cringes as he opens the door and Seishero and Cory walk in. Seishero bows to Seth's mother. "I am very pleased to meat you Mrs. Davis."

Seth's mother looks at the girl and stops her fit of rage and gets a more homely look on her face. "It's Ms. Davis and what would your name be?"

Seishero looks at her and smiles a very wide smile, her green hair flopping around freely, "I'm Seishero Nanami, and this is Chibi-Miloe."

Seishero holds up Chibi-Miloe and Seth's mom starts to stifle a sneeze. "Tha tha that's achoo cat. I'm a a allergic to achoo cats"

Seth laughs and looks at his mom like she's losing it. "Come on mom those sneezes are just in your head. It's only a plushie."

Seth's mom continues to sneeze uncontrollably. "Then one of you's been around cats today, cause I've got no control over these sneezes. But Seth, we can't take this girl into our house."

Seishero's eyes suddenly tear up and she whimpers while looking at Seth mom, "You mean you don't want me here?"

Seth's mom looks down at Seishero and sighs, "Okay okay, she can stay, but Seth, I'm going to have a long talk with you about this later. Oh and hello Cory, would you like some biscuits?"

Cory smiles and almost reaches for some brown, candy-covered biscuits lying on a tray beside Seth's mother, but stops himself. "I'm sorry; I'm busy. Seth and I have some history homework to work on."

Seth, Cory and Seishero walk towards the staircase and Seth's mother calls over, "Seishero can sleep on the third room on the left, and doesn't she have any luggage?"

Seth turns around and looks at his mom with a DOH look on his face, but straightens it out before it can draw suspicion. "Seishero wanted to explore the American fashions, so we're going shopping later to pick up some new stuff. Isn't that right, Seishero?"

Seishero nods her head and makes Chibi-Miloe nod its head as well. "Shopping is fun."

They continue up the stairs, glance down the narrow hallway, and Seth opens the door to his room. He walks in and plops down on his bed while Cory sits in a bean bag chair in the corner. Seishero goes over to Seth and sits down beside him. Seth lays there silent for a few seconds then speaks, "That went rather smoothly. So, what do we do next?"

Cory looks around Seth's small bedroom. A basic wooden desk with a computer in the corner, a pencil case with scissors, whiteout, and several other things sticking out of it, a TV with a huge assortment of game systems lying on the floor then looks at his arm for a minute. "We see if I've really developed super powers." Cory grabs the scissors from Seth's pencil case and slices across his arm. A thin stroke of red blood comes down and Cory looks at it. "I guess it doesn't work quite that easily." Cory looks away from the wound and back at Seth, who's shaking his head and coughing in disbelief that Cory would just slice his arm open.

Seth frowns and looks over at Seishero. "Maybe our little mindblower here healed you."

Suddenly Seishero points at Cory's arm and shouts, "Look." A glowing green liquid covers the scratch seeming to secrete from Cory's skin and disappears, leaving the arm good as new.

Cory looks down at the arm and turns it around, looking at it. "Well, what do you know. As soon as I stopped thinking about it it healed. But what was that green stuff."

Seishero jumps up and down on the bed. "Oh, that was Daddy's secret potion. How'd you get it? I thought he only gave it to me and my friends at the school."

Cory looks up at her. "Secret potion? How… wait, glowing green. I just remembered. I saw a glowing green light in the sewer earlier today and when I checked it out I got blasted in the face by some awful tasting, glowing green water. You don't think some of this secret potion was in the sewer, do you?"

Seishero looks worried. "I wonder how the Gregin X got in the sewers."

Seth looks over at Nanami and asks, "Gregin X, what is Gregin X?"

Seishero smiles. "I told you. Daddies Secret potion. He's got tons of research files at our place. He's always working on it."

Seth frowns. "I'd really like to take a look at those files."

Suddenly Seth's mother voice comes up the stairs, "Seth, dinner's ready."

Seth looks from Seishero to Cory. "I guess we'd better go eat."

Seth, Cory and Seishero go down the stairs and the strong smells of breaded chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy and corn waft by them causing Seth and Cory to close their eyes and inhale. Seishero goes down the stairs and looks at the breaded chicken funnily. "I've never seen chicken prepared like that before."

Seth and Cory practically throw each other down the stairs, racing to the table and Seishero sits down and looks at her plate. She slowly tastes everything, enjoying every taste, while Seth and Cory start scarfing down their food with the speed of a hungry shark.

Seth sees the remote next to his mother and glances over at the TV. The news is on and Seth diverts some of his attention to watching it while he eats. "Five police officers died while investigating a possible lead on the Pyronian Syndicate earlier today, and in more pressing news, Famous scientist Umigara Nanami's daughter went missing today-" Seth looks at the picture in the top right of the screen, sees Seishero's face, suddenly grabs the remote, and switches the channel.

Seth's mother looks over at Seth and grabs the remote back, "I was watching that. Beth from down the street's sister is the anchor," and changes the channel back to the news.

Seishero's picture has changed to the Dimensia Tek logo, a portal with Dimensia Tek written around it. " Demensia Tek Corporation is offering one million dollars for her safe return."

Seth's mother frowns. "A poor thing. I hope she's alright."

Seth and Cory both look at their lean plates to the mountain of food still on the table then over to Seishero and sigh then say in unison, "I'm stuffed, is it alright if we take Seishero shopping now?"

Seishero looks up from her half-finished plate and nods. "Please, can we? Chibi-Miloe wants to go too."

Seth's mom looks at the plushie, sneezes all over her plate and then sighs, "Fine, fine, just take that plushie with you."

Seishero laughs, "I don't go anywhere without Chibi-Miloe," and Seth, Cory and Seishero get up and go out the door.

Seth and Cory frown as they think about all the food they left behind and Seishero skips along happily as she looks around outside. The day is getting late and the sun is low in the west. Seth smiles and sighs as he looks at Nanami. "I wish I were that carefree sometimes. Well, let's get going; we want to get the shopping done fast and investigate Seishero's house before things get too late. Hmm, Seishero might draw too much attention the way she is. SEISHERO wait up."

Seishero stops and looks back at Seth. "What is it Dubby Dub?"

Seth pants as he catches up to Seishero and he looks up to her and speaks between breaths. "You shouldn't run so far ahead of us and you're too easy to recognize like that." Seth reaches to the knots tying Seishero's hair into two streams and pulls them apart causing her long hair to spread out all along her shoulders and back.

Seishero looks at her new hairstyle and twirls around, her pink dress and green hair twirling in the air, "It looks nice. Thanks, Dubby Dub."

Seth smiles and pats his hand onto the back of his head. "Wow, if hair styling is this easy I should do it for a career. Heh, that would be fun."

Seishero looks around the huge mall swarming with people and glances from one store to the other. "OH they've got so many toy stores. Can we go check out the toy stores? I won't make you buy any. I justwanna look. Please?"

Seth shakes his head. "We're in a hurry, remember? Now let's go get you some clothes and be done here. Seishero?" Seth looks around, as he can't find Seishero.

Seishero swipes a blue credit card through a machine and runs back to Seth, carrying a small key chain and necklace which he hooks Chibi-Miloe onto and hangs around her neck. "There you go Chibi-Miloe now you don't have to complain about me squeezing too tight anymore."

Seth jumps into the air and turns around. "What did I say about staying together. From now on you stick with me."

Seishero dangles the new necklace around her fingers and nods. "Alright. Let's go to the clothes store over there. Daddy buys me things there all the time."

Seth looks at her. "So you really do like shopping, don't you?"

Seishero giggles, "Yeah silly. It's one of my ten favorite things."

Seth takes Seishero through the ranks of clothing and after having eight foot mounds piled into both him and Cory's arms walks towards the cash register and sets it all down. The lady in charge looks at the clothes and then from Seth to Cory with an odd look on her face until Seishero comes over carrying one last shirt and sets it on the pile. "How much for it all?"

The cashier looks at Seishero, gets an embarrassed look from the thoughts that had been going through her head and runs it all through, "That'll be 567 dollars."

Seishero holds up the blue credit card and Seth quickly sticks out his hand and pulls his dad's card out. "Let me cover it Sei." Seth runs the card through the machine, flinches at the thought of what his dad will say when he finds out, takes the 16 glitter covered bags the clothes are in, and hands them to Cory. Cory piles them all up, looks between the tiny hole his face can look through, and follows Seth and Seishero outside.

Seth wipes his hand through his hair. "That was close. If you'd paid for those clothes they could've traced your credit card. Cory, there's no sense in us all getting caught if this plan goes wrong. You take Seishero home and I'll check out her place."

Seishero looks at him. "But you said I was going to stay with you, Dubby Dub. And how will you find my place and my Sad's secret lab without me?"

Seth looks at her and sighs, "I really don't think it's a good idea to take you anywhere near your house, but you do have a point. Well Cory, you take all Seishero's stuff back to my place and we'll check out her house."

Cory tries to argue, but the bags slide down and cover his face. He gives out a sigh and starts walking to Seth's house. Seth and Seishero both walk towards the north bridge.

The shaded, grey-haired man and the large black man both walk into an office with a shaded figure behind a desk and a badly beaten Dr. Nanami. The black man hands a picture to the shaded figure. "Sir, Seishero's credit card popped up in a local mall a few minutes ago and that's a clip from the security cameras. The boys with Seishero are the two from the bridge."

The shaded figure looks at the picture and smiles. "Well Dr. Nanami, it appears you were wrong. Your daughter hasn't gotten as far away from here as humanly possible and now she's just made her first mistake. We'll have her soon enough. Thomson, Daravon get out on the streets and find Seishero."

Seth sticks his head over a fence and peers into the gloomy yard. The sun has set and the quarter moon sends a dull glow over the yard. Seth squints, trying to make out the house, the broken streetlamp providing little help. Seth ducks back behind the fence. "There's a van parked out in front of your house seeming to be keeping an eye on it. Do you have a back door we can sneak in?"

Seishero is sitting on the cold grass holding Chibi-Miloe tightly and shivering. She simply nods her head and stands up and follows around the fence with Seth. Seth peeks over the fence again and sees the backyard of the house perfectly calm and out of the view of the van. Seth boosts Seishero over and then climbs up himself. They walk up to the door and... find it's locked. "Now what do we do?"

Seishero looks over at Seth and shakes her head. "Unlock it silly." Seishero pulls a key out of her pocket and opens the door. Seth goes in and looks around the very dark house. Seishero walks into a room and Seth wanders into the living room before noticing she's gone and following after her.

A fat man eating a hot dog is lookng at a panel of cameras from the inside of a van. Suddenly he sees Seth pop up on one of the cameras and coughs on his hot dog as he freezes the frame. He quickly pulls out a copy of the picture from the mall and picks up a phone, "Sir, the boy from the mall is inside the Nanami Residence. Should I go in?"

The voice from the shadowy figure comes over the other end of the phone, "Excellent, wait for Thomas and Daravon to arrive. This boy should not be taken lightly. He could be a Solar."

Seishero walks up to a panel and punches several numbers into it and a piece of floor lowers into the ground and slides away, revealing a staircase down. Seishero leads the way and types another combination of numbers into another keypad and several fields disappear. "This is Daddy's workplace. He took me down here a few times when I was younger."

Seth looks at the keypad. "When you were younger, you mean you've remembered those pass codes all this time and never forgot?"

Seishero just continues to walk down the hall and gets to a desk and starts looking through the files until she finds a yellow folder and looks inside. "I never forget anything. My daddy says it's one of the side effects of my accident. This is Daddy's research file; we should leave now."

Seth glances at a glass display case full of very old things and brings his face up to the glass to try and read some strange writing on one of the items. "That's odd. I almost feel like I can read this."

Seishero smiles. "That's Daddy's collection, we're not allowed to touch."

Suddenly footsteps are heard coming down the stairs and Seth spins around to see Hiro Moto walking down wearing a black mantle and cape and a circlet with a gem identical to his necklace in it. He looks at Seth. "Thanks for opening the door. Now if you want to live, give me the Key of Cortex."

Seth looks at him cross-eyed for a second then shakes his head. "Hiro Moto?"

Hiro Moto looks at Seth with a twinge to his face. "Identifying me was not a good action Seth Davis." Hiro Moto lifts his hand and points it at Seth and the stones around his neck and on his forehead start to glow. Seth and Seishero brace for an attack, but suddenly Hiro Moto spins around and three bullets fall dead in midair. "Why must so many people get in my way?"

Seth looks over Hiro's shoulder and three men in suits come down the stairs: the shaded, grey-haired man and the chubby, food-munching one who's eating something with his left hand even now and behind them, unable to fully enter the passage, the giant black man. The shaded figure looks at Hiro Moto analytically and then speaks, "You are a Dazer. I wonder what business a low level Dazer has here. Heh, interesting, I thought we'd scared the local Dazer population into the South District."

Hiro Moto starts to sweat at the mention of Dazers. "Who are you?"

Seishero looks at the three of them and whimpers to Seth, "The gross man's Samson. The black man is supposed to watch my daddy, he's Daravon. And the one from the bridge is Thomson. Keep them away from me, Seth."

Thomson cranes his neck. "Seth, eh? It's nice to know you can speak my name, Seishero, instead of that childish gibberish you usually refer to me by, but-"

Hiro Moto's stones glow really bright and Samson and Daravon start flailing about madly screaming in pain for no conceivable reason. Thomson looks at them then back to Hiro and holds his gun ready. Hiro gets a concerned look on his face at Thomson's failure to react and when his stones glow again points his hand at Thomson. Thomson doesn't even flinch and fires his pistol hitting Hiro in the leg, then raises it to shoot him somewhere more vital but Seishero holds her hands forward. "PLAY NICE." Thomson fires the pistol as he and Samson fly backwards slamming into Daravon and the three roll back out of the passage. The bullet misses Hiro and smashes into the display case shattering it open, sending the contents and shards of glass flying around the room. Seth covers Seishero from the glass, as she's in a daze after pushing them out, and Hiro ducks low to the floor grasping his leg. Thomson quickly gets back to his feet and glances around, unable to find a gun. Hiro points one hand at Thomson and one at the various items laying about the ground and fires an orange orb into Thomson that sends him flying backwards and through a window while the other draws an artifact into his palm which he pockets.

Hiro tries to stand on his injured leg but screams and falls to his knees. Seth and Seishero run up to Hiro and help him to his feet. Hiro looks at them confused. "Why are you helping me?"

Seth grunts. "Because you helped us and we need all the friends we can get."

Hiro laughs an evil laugh and points his hand at Daravon, who's getting back on his feet and sends him flying out the window, knocking Thomson, who's just managed to crawl back in, out with him. "I'm only helping myself. I owe you nothing."

Seth and Seishero pick him up, run past a moaning Samson and head out the door. Thomson spots them and starts running at them, bearing no wounds and showing no signs of exhaustion for someone who's just been blasted three times. Seth spots the van that's been watching the house and notices it's turned on and leads Seishero over to it. The sudden turn causes Hiro to miss with one of his force orbs and Thomson gets really close. Seth whips the van door open and it slams into Thomson, knocking him to the ground, but he quickly back flips to his feet and then Hiro lets out another force orb sending him 30 meters farther away. Seishero and Hiro get in and Seth takes the drivers seat, closing the door. Hiro looks at Seth as he shifts the gears. "Do you know how to drive this thing?"

Seth smiles and laughs. "I've only got my G1 so I guess we'll have to find out." Seth kicks the van into reverse just as Thomson makes a swing for the window, then spins it around and starts going full acceleration forward. Hiro looks out the back window and gasps as he sees Thomson running after the van on foot and gaining on them. He holds his hands out and the rear mirror comes off and floats in the air smashing into Thomson as he continues to run, not slowing him down at all.

Hiro gets very agitated by this. "What the hell is he?"

Seishero whimpers when she looks back and sees Thomson gaining on them, "Hit him with another orb, Hiro."

Hiro holds his hand forward and shakes off a wave of exhaustion and fires one very big orb at him which sends him flying 200 meters into the air and lands in a truck going the opposite direction. Hiro sighs and then passes out. Seishero looks at him and screams, "Oh no, Hiro's dead."

Seth looks over at Hiro then quickly glances back onto the road and almost loses control of the van. "No, he's just exhausted. Take care of him. I'm taking us to the hospital.

Seth adjusts the rear mirror so he can make sure Thomson's not following them anymore and after a short while gets to the hospital and lets out a sigh of relief. "Alright Seishero, we're going to take Hiro in now, but we can't stay. We have to get out of the open as soon as we can." Seth and Seishero drag Hiro out of the van, and then Seth grabs two soda bottles from the van, holds them together, and uses them to prop the gas pedal down causing the van to take off down the road. "We don't want them tracing the van to this hospital." Seth and Seishero drop Hiro off at the doors of the hospital and then run away because someone spots them and runs over.

Seth and Seishero run for a long time, not saying a word and just watching everything go by in a daze before finally stopping outside the store where they'd first met. They lean against the walls gasping for breath. "All the heroes in the video games make this stuff look easy. Oh shit, we never got a chance to read up on Gregin X."

Seishero giggles and holds up the folder from before. "I took my Daddy's folder with me. We can read it anytime."

Seth looks from the folder to Seishero and then grabs her and kisses her and then jumps back and shakes his head. "Um… yeah. That was just… yeah."

Seishero giggles and Seth leads her around the block to his place where his mother's sitting outside on the porch with a Coke reading a book. She glances at Seth as he walks up and sees the two of them blushing. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Seth jumps and looks at his mother and shakes his head. "Wow Momma, um tell you what?"

Seth's mother frowns, "Don't play stupid with me, Seth. Sending Cory back here with all Seishero's things without you? You really think I'd let him go without telling me where you went?"

Seth gets a very nervous look on his face. "Mom, I can explain-"

Seth's mother sighs, "I mean, if you'd just told me you were going to a party I would of been perfectly fine with it, but you lied to me. Now since this is the first time you've acted up in a long time, I'll go easy on you. For the next two weeks you cannot leave after 7:00, and if you're not home by 7:00 you'll be grounded. I'm very disappointed in you Seth. Now it's late; you two should go to bed.

Seth headed up the stairs to his room saying his prayers that Cory had come up with a great excuse and that he hadn't blurted the whole thing out.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3: New Horizons

Seth groans as his alarm clock starts beeping and reaches over to where it is to hit the stop button but finds a large squishy thing blocking the way and opens his eyes to see Seishero staring at his face with his hand on her breast. He jumps up, bashes his head on the ceiling, and falls back down on his bed holding his head while Seishero rushes over to him. He leaps back pulling the covers over his barely dressed body and shouts, "What are you doing in my room?"

Seishero smiles and holds up a plate with eggs, bacon, and toast, "You slept through breakfast so I saved a plate for you. I wanted to give it to you as soon as you woke up."

Seth sighs and then his stomach growls at the site of the bacon, "Well just stay out of my room when I'm sleeping and PLEASE go out for a second so I can get dressed." Seishero nods, blushes, and runs out of the room as Seth flicks open a drawer, pulls out a green turtleneck and a pair of blue jeans, quickly tosses them on and walks out the door.

Seishero smiles as he comes out and speaks quickly, "It's Saturday. What are you going to do today, Dubby Dub?"

Seth looks around groggily and groans, "I usually sleep for a better portion of the day Saturday, but I guess I do have stuff to do today. We're going to find Cory and take a look at those files. So gimme the food."

Seishero giggles and hands the plate to Seth, who carries it in one hand and eats the food with the other. When he gets down his mom looks from Seishero to Seth and laughs, "You're up early. What's so special about today?"

Seth grumbles through a mouthful of eggs and swallows, "Our little guest here decided I needed to eat a healthy breakfast," and sets the plate on a table so he can open the fridge to grab a can of Coke. He sits down and finishes eating quickly and then sits back. "You sure saved a lot Seishero. Thanks."

Seishero sits down at the table and stares at Seth. "So, when do we go to see Cory?"

Seth glances around the small kitchen to the little black phone on the wall near a trash can. "I'm not sure. I guess I'll give him a call and see if he's available."

Seth walks over to the phone and dials a number. A few rings later, someone picks up. A slightly creepy, gruff, masculine voice responds, "Y'ello, who's there?"

Seth rolls his eyes. "Hello Uncle Tom, is Cory there?"

Tom's voice replies, "Just a minute," and a few seconds later Cory's voice comes onto the phone. "Hey Seth. So I suppose you want to meet me."

Seth smiles, "Right to the point I see. But yeah, pretty much. Where and when?"

Cory laughs, "You know me, and I was thinking we could meet at the old tree house in the woods behind my house."

Seth nods his head to the air. "That would seem appropriate. I'll ride the bus to the edge of town and walk over now." Seth hangs up the phone and looks over to his mother. "Seishero and I are going to head over to Cory's. Is that alright?"

Seth's mother nods, "That's fine, but be back before curfew."

Seth grumbles, remembering his new curfew, and quickly rushes up to his room. He grabs his backpack and fills it with the documents on Gregin X, while putting his wallet in his pocket and heading down again. Seishero sees him and opens the door for Seth as he walks out. They both head over to a bus stop a few houses down and sit on the bench.

Seishero looks around the bright city, everyone is just waking up, rushing on their way to work, and she smiles and laughs, "Wouldn't it be great if we could be a bench for a day?"

Seth raises an eye brow and half giggles, "Yeah, I just love staring at people's behinds."

Seishero grumbles, "Not that, Dubby Dub. Chibi-Miloe and I were thinking and a bench is just so peaceful. It never has to do anything except help people relax and it can spend all day watching everything."

Seth laughs and shrugs his shoulders. "If I were an inanimate object, I'd be a computer. Then I'd be able to enter into any world imaginable through games and have access to all the knowledge on the Web."

Seishero looks up at the sky and mumbles, "Knowledge. Is knowledge really such a good thing?"

Seth looks at Seishero thoughtfully. "Hmm I never really thought about it. I guess there are some things better left unknown and unexplored. We certainly wouldn't be in the situation we're in now if this Gregin X had been left alone. Well, here comes the bus."

A small white bus with the faded letters "City Transit" written on it rolls to a stop and Seishero and Seth get on. Seth drops a few coins into a tray and then sits down beside Seishero.

Seishero holds Chibi-Miloe up to the window as she looks out and points to things as they drive by completely distracted and Seth stares for a while until eventually the long ride begins to stir his thoughts. (Why did these events have to happen to me? Up until yesterday I'd been an average, well maybe not average but still relatively normal teenager, but then again, just looking at Seishero makes me wonder why I've wasted my life up to this point doing nothing but play games.) Seth glances out the window and then jumps up and yanks the cord to indicate to the bus driver to stop, "Seishero, get up. We have to get off here."

As the bus creaks to a halt, Seishero jumps up and lets Chibi-Miloe hang from his new chain. She speaks while giggling at the bus driver's green mullet, "So, we're going to see Cory now?"

Seth smiles as he leads her off the bus. "Indeed we are. He lives about a three minutes walk out of town."

Seth and Seishero are standing at the very edge of the city. The gravel of the road is faded, and shortly after leaving the town fades away, completely running into a dirt road. The air is dusty and polluted and only the sickliest of plants grow in the area.

Seth shakes his head as he sees the plants and mumbles under his breath, "You'd think we'd have learned from the past what happens when we do this to the environment."

Seishero squints and rubs her nose, irritated. "I don't like this place very much, Dubby Dub."

Seth shakes his head. "Neither do I, but it clears out by the time we reach Cory's place. It's lucky he lives as far as he does. Any closer and his house would be right in the middle of this filth."

As they continue to walk, a small, yellow brick house comes into view. It sits at the back of a large apple orchard with one side of the house on the brink of the de-vegetated zone and the other two surrounded by trees. Cory sees them coming as he walks down the long dirt driveway, "Welcome to my house, home of the most disgusting apples this side of the city."

Seishero looks at the orchard noting that it isn't entirely free of the filth that is close to the town. The trees have a strange deadness to them even though they are covered in apple blossoms. Seth laughs as he and Seishero continue forward. They quickly get to a break in the driveway where a small path leads into the trees and enter onto it, and before long arrive at a large wooden tree fort with three ladders and a slide with several swings. Cory smiles as he shimmies up a pole into the fort. Seth helps Seishero climb a ladder as he follows up behind her.

When they reach the top Seth sets his pack on the floor and spreads the papers across the floor. "This is everything we could find."

Cory looks at the pile and sets his hand on the back of his forehead. "Well, I'll be. There's a lot there. I guess we better get started."

Seishero, Seth, and Cory divide the pile into three and slowly begin sifting through. Time passes slowly as they read useless report after useless report. Seth growls after throwing another report behind him, "The majority of these are experiment records, and all of them were quite recently as well. I don't think we'll find anything here."

Seishero points to a faded piece of paper. "What about that one? It looks pretty old."

Seth sees the file and picks it up. "Let's see, male infusion experiment 3. After the failure of the previous two experiments, they still insisted I try a third. After injection, the subject exhibited a brief boost in condition before dying. Why can't they just give up? Gregin X was developed to be a steroid for women, no man has ever survived an infusion. This was just last month."

Cory's eyes take on a very worried look as he stares at himself. "I don't feel so good, Seth. I want to go to a hospital now. I want this stuff out."

Seth looks at him, "But Cory, holy crap hospital I forgot. Hiro Moto is in the hospital because he got shot helping us escape last night."

Cory looks at Seth. "You mean you got caught sneaking into Seishero's house?"

Seth frowns. "Yeah, if it wasn't for Hiro's help we never would have escaped. I was going to visit him today."

Cory looks at him and shakes his head. "Well, let's go visit him then. Anything's better than sitting here reading through boring old lab results."

Seth's mother is sitting at a desk typing on a keyboard while speaking on a phone, "Yes, Mr. Drake is available for a press conference tomorrow afternoon. Alright, I've booked it in. Have a nice day." Ms. Davis hangs up the phone and cranes her neck as a blond haired man with a gray suit with tie and a million dollar smile steps out of his office. Ms. Davis smiles. "Good afternoon, Mr. Drake."

Mr. Drake smiles and holds his hands in the air. "Please, call me Damian." Damian reaches for a picture on her desk and smiles as he glances towards it saying, "Who's this lovely face?" And his eyes freeze on the image.

Ms. Davis smiles and giggles, "That's my son, Seth. Isn't he a handsome boy?"

Damian smiles weakly with a nervous edge to his voice and says, "Indeed he is. So what's Seth up to nowadays?" as he puts the picture back on her desk.

Ms. Davis straightens the picture, "The usual for a teenager. Although he did the strangest thing and signed us up to house a foreign exchange student for I don't know how long. He's out with her right now."

Damian walks into his office saying, "You're new to the job, but I can tell you're going to go far in this business, Ms. Davis," and closes the door as he walks to his desk to pick up the phone.

Seth, Cory, and Seishero walk up to the hospital's secretary, and she looks at them sternly. "Can I help you three?"

Seth smiles and looks at the secretary, speaking calmly. "Yes. We're looking for Hiro Moto's room. He's a friend of ours and we heard he was dropped off here last night."

The secretary goes to look at the computer, then snaps her fingers, "Yes, the Egyptian boy. He's on the second floor in room E212."

Seth thanks the secretary and the three head to the elevator and hit 2. They come out of the elevator on the second floor and walk a few doors down to E212 and step in. Hiro looks at them as they enter and rolls his eyes. "Come to gawk at me or something? I was hoping I'd be out of here before you decided to show up."

Seth looks over at the sleek blue hospital robe he's wearing and notices his possessions on the table beside him. "How's the leg Hiro? And it's nice to see you too."

Hiro looks down at his leg. "It will be fine the bullet passed right through and didn't hit anything important. In fact, they were going to release me in the morning. Aside from a serious case of exhaustion, I was fine when you brought me here."

Seishero smiles at Hiro then walks over to his roommate. A blue haired woman is lying in the bed, eyes shut, hooked up to life support systems. Cory points at her. "What happened to her?"

Hiro rolls his eyes. "How can you be so childish, getting distracted so easily? If you really must know, she is the only survivor of the terrorist attack on the plane yesterday, and it's odd because she came out of it without a scratch, but she's been in a coma since they found her."

Seishero speaks softly, "She seems very nice. Chibi-Miloe likes her too."

Seth looks at her, "She is kinda cute eh, Co-"

Suddenly, the ground jolts as a loud explosion rocks the building. The sounds of a car screeching to a halt outside can be heard as a person dressed in a black suit with a tank on his back and a hose in his hands jumps through the window. He looks from the woman to Hiro, and then over to Seth and the others. He pulls a trigger on the hose as Hiro grabs his necklace from the table beside him and sticks his other hand forward, causing the hose to point towards the man's head so that the gust of fire that comes forth melts him into nothing. Hiro screams, "You people bring trouble wherever you go!"

Outside, the explosion brings many heads towards room E212. A nurse walking down the hall with a cart strips the bottom off of her skirt and pulls two Uzis out of her cart while two janitors remove shotguns from hidden compartments in their clothes and rush to the room. Agents Thomson, Samson, and Daravon come running out of the elevator and into the room, colliding with the nurses and janitors, rolling to opposite sides of the room and holding their guns poised at each other as three more men in suits with tanks and hoses come through the window.

Hiro looks at them all, draws his tiara to his head while his robe wraps around him and his necklace swings around his head onto his neck. "You know what? I just don't want to know." The guns spread to everyone in the room and Seishero screams as some of the guns go off. The bullets' paths warp and fly into random poles, one taking out one of the woman's life support systems. The heart monitor flat lines for a second and suddenly the woman's eyes shoot open and she sits straight up. Seth pulls her down from her bed as a flame thrower goes off lighting the space she'd been a second ago on fire. Cory pushes Seishero out of the way of another blast of fire and gets roasted himself. He stands there burning for a second and then walks through the fire screaming in pain and shoves the man's hose into the man as his skin quickly oozes healed. The nurse looks around, confused about who to shoot, as Thomson jumps towards Seishero. Hiro floats into the air, his stones glowing, and fires a big orange orb into the center of the floor, sending everyone else flying back as he floats out the window.

Seeing Cory's display of invincibility, the other two men in suits jump out the window as Thomson's colleagues flee. Thomson smiles as he sees how many people are brandishing weapons against him. "This will be interesting."

The woman finally looks at Thomson, "Elements that bind this world, heed my call. Send this fool a fireball." A blue circle with a silver pentagram in it appears in the air in front of the woman and a ball of fire shoots out and smashes into Thomson's arm, sending him flying out the door and into the hall outside. He looks at it as sparks begin to come out and clasps his hand over it, looks back at the woman, and runs towards the elevator.

Seth lets out a sigh of relief as the nurse and janitors point their guns at him and his friends. The nurse grunts in a very non-soothing voice, "Who are you and who do you work for?" The blue-haired woman stands straight and looks down at them. "It's alright, Fiona. They don't appear to be our enemies. I'm afraid they'll have to come with us for a ride."

Seth looks around the large building they've just arrived at. But instead of entering through the front door, they head around back to a phone booth. One of the "janitors" who's now dressed in a white suit, dials a phone number and a section of the wall falls in, revealing a hidden door. Once inside, the door snaps shut and they look at the chrome corridors, and Seishero shivers. They are led to a large office where a black haired man with military stripes turns to face them. "Hello there, and welcome to Solar HQ. I've heard that you are able to do some pretty impressive things. We like people who can do impressive things. In fact, we'd like you to join us. Now don't go making this decision hastily. We'd like you take every factor into account before you decide. So your friends from the hospital are going to take you on a little tour."


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Too good to be True.

People are walking down the street going about their daily routines, men in suits drudging on emotionless. Suddenly a loud humming is heard, a few people stop and look around. The humming grows louder and louder and the air and ground start to vibrate with the humming as it reaches a deafening pitch before a massive bang cracks through the air and a black tear is ripped in the air. Black lightning shoots out of it disintegrating those who stopped to watch, all electrical systems short out and overload causing tiny electrical fires to burst out in a 2-mile radius as the black tear closes revealing a short woman. Her arms and legs are abnormally straight and rather long in comparison to her torso. She wears a strange grey and white uniform, and her silver hair is thrown wildly about from the massive gusts of wind swirling around her. She rises to her feat brushing her hair out of her face and dusting herself off and then looks around and snorts dissatisfied, "Why would he ever want to come to a place like this?"

Seth looks at the blue haired woman as she leads him down the hall with Seishero and Cory on either side of him and sighs. The woman glances back, "Is something the matter?"

Seth snorts and glares at the woman annoyed, "Of course something's the matter, I'd call being kidnapped and dragged away to some secret organisation a problem."

The woman laughs, "I wouldn't call this kidnapping so much as I would temporarily relocating. If you choose to leave you'll be free to go; not that anyone's ever wanted to. Feel free to ask any questions you must have."

Cory looks at the many blank doors in the long white hall they are walking along, "Who are in all these rooms?"

The woman looks at Cory and shrugs sighing, "Those rooms are used to hold the prisoners. All criminals we've captured that wouldn't be confined by a normal prison cell."

Seth snorts, "Criminals, I'm sure. What are they really, people like me who decided they didn't like this little organisation? Or is it where you lock up all your-"

Seishero cuts Seth off mid sentence and get right in the woman's face with a very disgruntled look and grumbles, "Chibi Miloe wants to know your name."

The woman backs away from Seishero quickly and looks at her confused and disoriented almost falling over, "Chibi Miloe... wha." She locks her eyes on the small cat plushie that Seishero is holding and stares at it dumbfounded, "You mean that plushie? Could it be..." The woman tries to grab the cat but Seishero jumps back screeching and hides behind Seth.

The woman sighs again, "Ah, why do they always make me escort the children, can't they find ANYONE else to do the job, I am known as Celestia Divine, but you can call me Celest."

Cory lifts his head and asks calmly, "Who exactly are the Solars?"

Celest regains a straight posture and smiles. "Now that's a good question. This answer is really simplified but we are an international organisation that devotes ourselves to keeping the world safe by tracking down those with potentially threatening powers," She looks directly at Cory and Seishero, "and protecting those with dangerous powers from the rest of the world."

Seth laughs sarcastically, "Aren't you all just a bunch of saints. I suppose you're going to wow us with some stories of all the people you've saved now."

Celest snorts at Seth and a look of anger flashes across her face. "I don't like your attitude, if you don't trust us that's your business, but I'd appreciate it if you didn't treat us like the scum of the universe. Especially considering the situation you're in."

Cory gets a concerned look on his face, "What do you mean by that?"

Celest smiles, "You don't know? HA! You really don't know? I have to say I'm amazed you lasted as long as you did in the open. Dimenstra-Tek Corporation is not to be taken lightly; their forces rival even ours. It is a horribly secretive organisation appearing to be a perfectly friendly research corporation developing new treatments for diseases, new fuel sources, and other "environmentally friendly means to enhance people's lives" when really, all they do is steal ideas from others. They spend most of their resources developing a super army, and they are dead set on capturing all three of you."

The group goes quiet for several seconds as they walk down the hall when finally Celest stops and opens a door. The strong fragrance of incense wafts from the room, as the air is thick with its smoke as they enter. An old woman is sitting behind a table meditating. Her wrinkly grey skin seemed to be an extension of the room's smoke making her hard to spot at first. Her colourful clothing, some chaotic designers descent into insanity, cling tightly to her skin seeming to be most. Without opening her eyes she speaks, "Close the door behind you, It takes 12 minutes to fill this room with incense and your letting it waft out."

Celest quickly closes the door and the woman nods her head and asks with a slight chuckle, "Celest what brings you here?"

Celest bows to the ancient woman, "I have brought 3 possible initiates."

The ancient woman laughs again, "No need to explain, I foresaw your arrival a few hours ago. Please have a seat." 4 chairs seem to appear out of nowhere and they all sit down, "Now, our guests are very interesting indeed. I can tell that they will be very important. Seishero Nanami, Cory Davis, and Seth Davis. You are all confused and unsure of the path you should choose in life. Cory, you have been contaminated by a very small amount of Gregin X, but it is growing and slowly destroying your body, do you really think you can survive without the help of this organisation?" Cory tries to speak but Celest motions for silence, "Seishero, your father is being held prisoner by Demenstra-Tek, do you want to rescue him, we can help. And finally Seth, oh Seth you are the most interesting soul I've seen in a long time, Forever cursed to spend eternity being dragged into other people's problems. A shame, you have no inherited abilities that will ever allow you to be more than average. You may leave now."

Celest pushes Seth, Cory, and Seishero out of the room. The ancient woman waits for the door to close and pulls a cell phone out of her pocket, "Two will not join of their own will."

Celest leads them around the building showing them various facilities including a training room, a massive library and computer users paradise before finally stopping in a waiting room. The three sit on an expensive couch while Celest sits in a comfortable chair and looks at them all, "So, I've taken you for the tour, and now it's time to ask, will you join us?" Cory and Seishero both look hesitantly at Seth.

Seth shakes his head, "As interesting as this place is, It's almost as bad as the Demenstra-Tek Corporation you're trying to protect us from. You all kidnapped us, you're a secret organisation, and you may try and justify why but you are building a super army as well. I don't see why you're any better than they are and would rather take my chances without your help. So if the offer to leave is still present, I think I'll take it, where is the door."

Celest frowns, "I see, and you two are going with him?" Seishero nods, standing and clinging to Seth, and Cory looks from Celest to Seth, and then nods his head after Seth gives him an angry glare.

Celest stands and sighs, "If you live long enough you'll be back. I'll send someone out to escort you away from here."

Celest leaves the room and Cory looks at Seth angrily, "I think you're being very inconsiderate here Seth. Just because you're a conspiracy nut doesn't mean you should treat all organisations like they are evil. You did say we needed to make allies."

Seth snaps his head at Cory, "If you want to join them go ahead, I'm not stopping you, but just know that you'll be on your own, Right Seishero?"

Seishero nods afraid, "Yes, Um Dubby Dub, Chibi Miloe is telling me we should run now. He says that they won't be very happy that we're not joining them."

Seth looks at Cory, "You don't think they'll...-"

Cory laughs annoyed, "After the way you treated them, I wouldn't be surprised. You have a horrid method of making friends."

Seth walks up to the door and attempts to open it and finds it locked, "Why would they lock the door without telling us if they were going to escort us out of here?"

Cory starts to pace about the room, "We need to get out of here now. Seishero, I don't suppose you can blow the door down with that mind blast of yours."

Seishero crawls into a ball in response to Cory's comment and Seth sighs, "Seishero, I know you're scared, but we really need your help on this. Can you control your... powers?"

Seishero whimpers and shakes her head. Cory puts his hand on his head, "I'm sorry, I wasn't thinking, don't worry about it. There must be another way out of this room."

Seth glances around the room slowly, just the one door, no windows, really dull artless walls, a bookcase on one wall full of dusty books, a large vent with a couch beneath it, a clear glass table and a lazy boy chair. Seth walks up to the vent and looks at it. "It's really screwed on tightly but I think we could crawl through it if we got it open."

Cory jumps on the couch and looks at the vent smiling, says, "It doesn't look too sturdy though," before ramming his fist through the vent cutting it up pretty badly but it quickly heals. He then rips the vent wide open and crawls in, "Hurry up you two, we need to leave now." Seth helps Seishero into the vent and then follows after her.

Celest walks into an office, "Sir, I'm sorry to announce that they've decided to refuse membership. We should send someone to escort them home immediately."

A man in a black suit with a cigar in his mouth smiles, "We are already aware of their refusal and they are being escorted from the building as we speak. Don't worry about them, our organisation will keep and eye on them and make sure they stay safe, now you've been out of action for a few days, I think you should head to training and make sure your skills are up to date. I heard you had a several second casting delay over your usual time in the fight before you came here."

Celest nods and walks away, "Understood sir. I'll get right on it." Celest walks out of the room and starts down the hall when she sees several men in black suits run past and almost knock her over. Celest dodges into a room and realises she's in the master security room.

A guard sees her and looks up as the monitor he's looking at is flashing red, "Hey Celest, what brings you here?"

Celest looks at the monitor, "What's going on there."

The guard shrugs, "Some prisoners are trying to escape through the ventilation system, the boss ordered me to send some guards to cut them off."

Celest looks at the monitors, "What do they look like?"

The guard hits a button on one of the monitors and Seth and the others are shown climbing through the vent. Celest shakes her head and screams, "That lying scumbag. He never intended to let them go." Celest runs out of the room and storming down the hall.

Cory quickly crawls through the vents with Seishero and Seth scrambling to keep up. Cory keeps on going looking around randomly with no idea where to turn, "It would help if we knew where we were going."

Seishero speaks really quietly, "Chibi-Miloe can find the way out."

Seth looks at Seishero and starts to say something stops and then speaks, "Well, I suppose it's better than scrambling around blindly, Cory, let her lead the way."

Seishero nods and passes Cory and starts leading the way. Cory looks at Seth and sighs, "I hope you're right about this."

The 4 of them continue on for a while before Seishero finally stops before a grating, and quickly starts pushing on it, "We have to go now. Chibi-Miloe says the guards will be here soon." Cory and Seth both start pushing with Seishero and the grate pops off onto the ground taking them with it just as a group of guards runs up.

The guards raise strange grey rifles and point them at the group and Seishero screams and visible ripples smash into the men sending them flying about like bowling pins. Cory looks behind them and sees light coming in from a door at the end of the hall and picks the others up and runs towards it with them as the guards resume their chase. Cory looks back and then stops, "Seth, take Seishero and run as far away from here as possible."

Seth looks at Cory, "You'll meet up with us later right?"

Cory shakes his head, "I'm not going back Seth." And turns to face the guards and gets ready to charge them.

Seth tries to run towards him but Seishero shrieks and starts tugging on his arm. He nods to her and runs towards the door and out into a hospital lobby and through the front doors into the street as Cory stares at the guards, "If you stay exactly where you are things won't get difficult."

One of the guards laughs, "We have explicit orders to capture you and your friends alive, surrender now."

Cory shakes his head, "I think you'll find capturing me difficult, and I won't let you capture the others."

The Sun is low in the sky as Seishero looks back at the building now fading in the distance as they finally slow down panting out of breath, "What's going to happen to Cory Dubby Dub? Where are we going to go next?"

Seth shakes his head, "I just don't know Seishero, but WE need to get as far away from this town as possible! My mother should still be at work so we should be able to grab a few supplies from my house and take off without anyone knowing. It's only about 12 blocks from here but we should hurry. Luckily they didn't take us to a facility out of town."

Seth quickly leads Seishero through the strangely deserted streets, all houselights are out and windows are covered as they finally come in sight of Seth's house. Everything is perfectly normal, except for the black car sitting in front of it and the two cars patrolling the road behind and in front of them. Seth quickly ducks into some bushes with Seishero and looks around panic setting in. "Damn it, they already found out where I live." Shouts can be heard as men in suits suddenly come running towards him from around a building, drawing pistols as they do. Seishero jumps up and starts running in the opposite direction, towards Seth's house.

Seth chases after Seishero and catches up to her as Agent Thomson steps around the corner and quickly grabs Seishero's arm. Seishero screams really loudly glows blue for a second and then a massive force sucks Seth and several fence pegs towards her before exploding outwards sending Seth flying towards his house and through the massive crack in the wall formed by the blast. Thomson holds tightly onto Seishero and seems unaffected and he quickly slaps her over the back of the head knocking her out and drops her to the ground. He then looks inside at Seth and steps through the hole in the wall as dust starts falling from many sections of the roof. Seth is lying on the kitchen floor with his head propped against a wall bleeding from the back and him moaning. Suddenly a piece of floor collapses under Thomson and he jumps back. He notices the collapsing structure and steps out of the crack laughing as a beam slams into the gas stove causing the gas to flow rapidly. The scraping metal creates a spark causing a small explosion, which is the final blow for the house, and it starts creaking violently as the explosion sets fire to the wall opposite Seth. Seth regains consciousness and slowly notices the wall of fire quickly spreading up the wall and then sees a beam crack loose from the ceiling to plummet towards him and closes his eyes expecting the worst.

He feels nothing and is wrenched to his feet a moment later to see Hiro Moto holding his hand in the air, his stones recharging and two cracked beams on either side of him. Hiro drags Seth out the back door jumping over weak sections of the floor and throws him to the ground as he watches the house collapse into itself burning the whole time.

Hiro looks down at Seth and shakes his head, "Pathetic, I can't believe I owed someone like you a life debt, well my debt is repaid. Whatever you do now, I'm going to stay as far away from it as possible. I'd suggest you get as far away from here as well unless you have some powerful friends." Hiro waits a few seconds for a reply and then storms off angrily as Seth just sits and watches the house burn and doesn't rise until darkness has fallen and the faint sound of fire sirens can be heard in the distance.

Seth walks around the house slowly and notices a small card laying on the ground, The Gregovich's school for gifted children logo shining in the moonlight. Seth picks the card up and a tear comes to his eye as he sees Seishero's picture on the opposite side. Seth puts the card in his pocket and walks down the street face stooped towards the ground and eyes barely open for several minutes not noticing the destruction around him, cars are upturned, windows are smashed, street lamps are bent around bodies. He finally stops when it starts pouring rain and turns to his left. He sees a bar with an open door and slowly walks in sighing. A voice meets his ears as he walks in, "So you've finally come, I was starting to worry you wouldn't."

Seth looks up to see a very strange silver haired woman wearing a grey and white uniform. He then notices the many corpses lying around the bar and attempts to back away. The woman looks towards him with a strange look on her face and then changes to an expression of shock as she sees him. "What the, you're not him, but you're the one I sensed."

Seth looks around to see if he can find a weapon to defend himself with but an unknown force grips him as the woman raises her hand is dragged towards her. She laughs, "I'm not letting you get away. Apparently, my dear friend Aren Comet's soul has been recycled after all this time and I want to get a better look at you. Look at you, nothing but a useless shell. If only your soul was not confined by such a useless body I might be able to finish the duel we started oh so long ago."

Seth looks at the woman extremely scared, "What are you talking about?"

The woman smiles. "I have a devilish idea." and passes her hand over Seth's face and a white light passes into him. Seth head suddenly fills with an intense pain as if someone had detonated a nuke inside of it and he instantly passes out.

The woman looks down at him as he rolls to the floor, "Oh dear, I guess it was a little too much for him to handle. I hope I didn't accidentally kill him." Seth's eyes slowly open and he looks up, "Ah. At least he's alive."

Seth looks at the woman, "Who are you?"

The woman attempts to speak as a strange orb hits her in the chest and explodes wrapping a net made of a strange plastic around her as a smoke bomb goes off in the centre of the room. A strong commanding voice rings out, "Evil doer beware, Science man is here." A strange, glasses wearing figure with an orange suit with a green test tube emblem on the chest and a belt full of hundreds of compartments around his waist.

The Woman bursts out laughing as soon as she lays eyes on him and she closes her eyes for a split second and the net around her melts, "My name is Orion Starshade, remember it well because I'll be back." Orion disappears as another orb flies past her.

Science Man runs over to Seth who is coughing on the smoke and looks at him, "Are you alright."

Seth looks around, "I'm not sure, where am I... in fact who am I?"


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5: Spheres, Robbers, and Super Heroes

After a four and a half hour drive Seth arrives somewhere and has a blindfold removed. Seth looks around the strange laboratory of this newly encountered stranger and, in Seth's personal opinion, total nut case - Science Man. It's a strange underground massive facility, which appears to be the basement of an abandoned warehouse. There are tables upon tables of vials, tools, and small gadgets and in the very center lies a massive keyboard with an even larger screen above it.

Science Man approaches the screen and hits a few buttons on the keyboard and the screen comes to life showing a strange desktop like no operating system Seth had ever seen. Science Man quickly sifts through several files until an image bank comes up with a picture of every single student in the local schools. He finally stops on an image of Seth and then brings up some information. Seth looks it over, "This is some piece of work, did you design this OS yourself? And the speed of this, I seem to be oddly attracted to this machine. Oh, well isn't that a strange name? Seth Davis. I'd of taken myself as more of a Joey."

Science Man laughs at this comment and brings up some more files. "Let's see if we can dig up some more information on you, shall we?" Science Man examines a file that pops up showing an online news article that had just been submitted. Science Man quickly looks it over, backs away and brings his hand up to his face, pinching his nose and thinking. "This is very interesting. Apparently everyone thinks you're dead, but what concerns me more is that your mother is the secretary of Damian Drake."

Seth glances at the article and sees a picture of his mother crying with Damian Drake holding a comforting arm around her shoulder. Seth reads the caption out loud, "CEO of Demenstra-Tek Damian Drake comforting his secretary, and mother of the deceased, Linda Davis." Seth looks at Science Man as a strange woman with curly black hair and blue eyes wearing a grey dress shirt and black skirt walks down the stairs. "What's so special about Damian Drake?"

The woman looks at Seth, then glances at Science Man. "Bringing in complete strangers again Steven?"

Science Man quickly spins around and looks at the woman. "Carmen, don't just go around calling me by my real name in costume, this boy may just be important. I believe Demenstra-Tek wants him dead, but he has a really strong case of memory loss. Perfect timing on your part though, I was just going to call you. I need you to look after the kid while I investigate this incident.

Carmen smiles. "Glad to see you're as dedicated as ever. I have no problem keeping an eye on him."

Seth grumbles, "Hello, I'm standing right here. You don't have to talk about me in the third person. I have a name, and unless that report I saw was mistaken it's Seth."

Carmen shakes her head. "You better get going. I can already tell the less time I have to spend babysitting him the better."

Science Man nods and leaves the workshop through a back door while Carmen walks up to Seth. Seth looks at her. "So, Carmen, who exactly is this Science Man?"

Carmen shakes her head. "Just someone who has a serious problem with Demenstra-Tek and who looks out for the good of everyone. He reminds me so much of his father. so what exactly do you plan on doing now?"

Seth sighs and shakes his head. "I have no idea what do next. If the fact I have no memory wasn't confusing enough I've been taken to this place and told my life is in danger because the company my mother works for wants me dead. What would you do next if you were in my position?"

Carmen shrugs. "Heh, let's just say if I was in your position I wouldn't be too happy and certainly wouldn't want to be cooped up in this boring old lab."

Seth looks around the lab. "You're right, this place is a real drag. Although I wouldn't mind checking that computer out."

Carmen laughs and looks around the lab. "You're right. What would you say about getting out of here and waiting for news in my apartment?"

Seth stands up and looks at Carmen, "I'd say: what are we waiting for?"

Carmen's apartment is in the suburbs of the city and is one of 6 apartments in a cheap building. The inside is poorly furnished but one thing stands out and Seth quickly walks up to it. "That's a nice computer, a real Pentium IV. That must be an antique by now."

Carmen laughs, "Not as real as an antique dealer would like. I've been upgrading that case since I was a child. It doesn't have any games on it though, so no you cannot use it, as I'm sure you were about to ask. Oh, I just remembered I need to grab something from the store. I'm sure you can handle yourself here until I'm back."

Carmen leaves; Seth sits on the computer chair, spins around the room and comes to a stop facing the door Carmen just walked out and starts muttering to himself, "She probably won't mind if I just go out for a little walk. Nobody will be the wiser. What's the worst thing that could happen?" and with that slowly gets up and opens the door, notices the hallway is open and quickly walks down a set of stairs and steps outside.

Seth looks around and notices a small store across the street and immediately sticks his hand into his left pocket and pulls out a card. He smiles as he realizes what it is. "A credit card, alright."

Seth crosses the street, enters the store and looks around before stepping into a snack section and going over everything there, "If only I could remember which of these is my favorite."

Suddenly a gunshot goes off and Seth kneels to take cover behind the shelf as he hears a gruff voice speak, "Everyone in the store on the ground. This is a stick up. You at the register, get the key to the safe. If anyone tries anything funny, this broad gets it right between the eyes."

Seth looks over the shelf and sees a man in a ski mask holding a teenager by the neck with a gun to her head and a panicked clerk staring at the man from behind a cash register fumbling with a door, trying to get it open. The man growls, "Hurry up you stupid fucker. Don't you see I have a gun?" The man starts to move the gun to face the clerk but is suddenly hit in the back of the head with a fast moving object and falls to the ground unconscious. The clerk faints as the girl he was holding quickly runs towards the door screaming.

Seth walks up to the unconscious man and sees that the back of his head is bleeding from a point with a small lead ball in the center of the wound. Seth picks up the ball and looks towards the door where a figure about 4 and a half feet tall stands wearing a body suit and opera style mask. The suit is orange and has a big, grey circle in the middle of it, seemingly poorly drawn by some sort of crayon. Around his wrists are strange rings with holes in them that each have a small ball in them. One of these rings is empty. The man speaks in an emphatically rough voice, "I believe that ball belongs to me, I'd like it back ... Seth?"

Seth looks at this caped vigilante and bursts out laughing and stops when the sound of police sirens can be heard. The caped sphere user starts to run and Seth follows after him. Seth is lead a few blocks away and into an alley before the man turns to him panting out of breath and looks Seth up and down. Seth quickly speaks, "You know who I am?"

The man nods his head. "Indeed I do, but aren't you supposed to be dead? The news has been going chaotic all day. The whole city's gone into chaos or something. First some mass murderer strikes the downtown area causing some real chaos and then a report comes in of how you somehow blew yourself up. It was fluffed up even more than the murderer. I guess my disguise is pretty good though, since you don't recognize me."

Seth shakes his head. "I wouldn't give the disguise much credit; I probably wouldn't recognize you without it. I'm currently having serious memory issues."

The man looks at him. "That is unfreakingbelievable. Do you have any idea why everyone thinks you're dead?"

Seth sighs, "The only idea I have is the one some freak calling himself Science Man put in my head."

The man suddenly looks at Seth. "Did you say Science Man? He is my idol. You've seriously met him? Is he as cool as the web sites make him out to be... oh yeah, memory loss."

Seth looks at him and squints his face and shakes his head. "Who are you, anyway?"

The man smiles, "Well, I'd thought about calling myself SPHERE MASTER! what do you think?"

Seth sticks the credit card into his right pocket and feels another card inside it as he does and pulls this card out and looks at it while speaking, "No I want to know what your real-" Seth finally sees the picture on the back of the card and freezes instantly and slaps his hand to his forehead as an intense pain fills his head, "Ah, my head feels like it's being stomped on by an elephant from every direction at once."

Seth faints, opens his eyes a few seconds later and looks up at Sphere Master as the card flutters to the ground. "I think I'm starting to remember some things... Edward Gregorio?"

Sphere Master suddenly stares at Seth and contorts his face into a grimace. "I guess the disguise definitely wasn't as good as it could of been. But why did the card jog your memory? It's just some useless student card."

Seth looks at the card and picks it up. "Not just some card. Seishero... Damn it I couldn't save her."

Suddenly the card glows blue and a hologram pops up revealing the face of Dr. Nanami. The face looks at Seth and contorts into a look of confusion, "Who are you? How did you activate this card?"

Seth looks at the face. "I'm Seth Davis. Are you Seishero's father?"

Dr. Nanami gets a sudden glimmer of hope on his face. "Did you say Seth? The same Seth that helped my daughter out? Please tell me, is she alright?"

Seth shakes his head, tears now flowing freely from his sad face. "I'm sorry sir; I couldn't protect her. Mr. Thomson captured her while we were getting supplies to make a run for it."

The man's face contorts into an extremely frustrated position. "Damn it, Seishero! What are we going to do now?"

Edward looks at the little hologram and smiles. "Well simple, we'll launch a rescue mission."

The hologram swivels to face Edward. "And who are you?"

Edward smiles and laughs. "I am the great SPHERE MASTER! Sexy Titanic warrior of justice."

Seth sighs. "More like short stupid idiot who can shoot balls. But is there really any chance of a rescue?"

Dr. Nanami looks back to Seth. "It's probably hopeless, but if you really think you stand a chance there just may be a way. I have some blue prints in the basement of my house. It's probably been looted clean by now, but if you want to take the risk… I have to go now, someone's coming." The hologram fizzes out and Seth looks to Edward.

Edward smiles. "It looks like I'm going to get a lot of fieldwork after all."

Seth shakes his head and looks around. "I am so not taking you with me. Now where are we? My memory's still not that great and I'm definitely lost."

Edward laughs, "Of course you're going to be lost, We're not even in the same county as Demstar anymore. I decided to get a good distance from home before I field tested my powers. This is Gamebridge, we're a few hours from Demstar. Now we should hurry, I have a ride waiting a few blocks from here."

Seth starts to speak but Edward grabs him and starts dragging him along the back allies and eventually they find a strange vehicle hidden behind some dumpsters. The vehicle is in the shape of a Giant Ball and as soon as Edward approaches it a section opens and a green haired girl wearing a dirty work suit and a smudge of black grease on the tip of her nose hops out and looks at Edward. "Agent Tech reporting for duty, awaiting debriefing. Seth Davis is that you?"

Seth looks from the green-haired girl to Edwards blushing face than back to the green haired girl and drops to the ground laughing, stops for a moment, breathes, looks at the girl again and resumes laughing.

Edward growls, "Yes, laugh at me. Go ahead. You think you'd have a more serious attitude considering the situation we're in."

Seth stands up and replies through stifled laughs, "I'm sorry it's just that, looking at the two of you I couldn't imagine a more peculiar match and well no offence Danna, but frankly you're both the biggest loners in the school."

The girl shakes her head. "No offence taken. I suppose you're right, all the better for disguise. Aren't you supposed to be dead, and how did the field test go?"

Edward smacks Seth over the head and shrugs. "Well, as far as tests go that wasn't so bad, but the disguise is a no go. Seth here recognized me the moment he got his memory back."

Danna looks at them oddly. "Got his memory back?"

Seth slaps his hand to his forehead. "Listen, I'll explain to you on the way back to Demstar. Now where's the car?"

Edward looks from Danna to the Giant Ball, "Well you see, about that. Since neither of us can legally drive, and couldn't afford a car, Danna decided to build a vehicle on her own."

Seth looks at the Giant Ball, "You don't mean th-"

Danna walks up to the ball and puts her hand on it. "Isn't it a beauty? I call it the Roller. It's incredible. No fuel needed, either; it's set to run on the electricity generated by the ball spinning the generator on the inside. It's not the most roomy vehicle, though. Hurry up and hop inside."

Edward and Danna crawl into the monstrosity that is the Roller and Seth crawls in after them. On the inside are four chairs tightly crammed together inside a small ball completely covered in blue insulation. A single monitor stands in front of them which lights up, revealing four windows showing a general view of all directions from the ball. Seth takes a seat in one of the back seats as Edward takes the seat directly behind the monitor and buckles himself up with about eight clips as Danna does the same thing on the seat beside him. Seth quickly does the same himself. "Is this Roller... safe?"

Danna laughs and double checks Seth's buckles, "It passed five out of seven test runs, so you tell me."

Seth looks at Edward extremely pale. "She's joking, right?" Edward doesn't say anything and Seth sighs, "What a strange couple. The basketball team's mascot, and the biggest computer freak ever to touch the earth. Say, you didn't use these sphere moving powers of yours to help the basketball team out, did you? I always thought it was odd how such horrible players could become league champions. How exactly did you two meet in the-"

Seth is cut off as the Roller jumps to action, quickly spinning out of the alley and onto the road turning and rolling forward down the road going about 80 mph The rapid acceleration and sudden spinning motion dizzy Seth and he starts moaning from stomach aches as the Roller slows down a little with Edward saying matter-of-factly, "We are not a couple, just two united heroes."

Seth groans, "You've been watching way too many anime shows. Although the way every Tom, Dick and Harry on this planet seems to be developing super powers, why not? So tell me, how did you develop this strange power?"

Edward smiles. "Well this is going to be a long trip, so I don't see why not. When I was really young my father took me into the factory where he worked one day. I don't remember exactly why he brought me but he did.While we were there a crate of ball bearings burst open and one of them cracked me right in the head putting a hole in my skull and lodging itself in contact with my brain. When the doctors examined me they were amazed that I was even alive and felt that removing the ball had too high a risk of causing brain damage and seeing as the ball was firmly locked into place they decided to leave it there. Well, after I got older I found that my head tingled a little every time I thought about balls and one day I was just able to move them around. What do you think?"

Seth shakes his head. "I think your explanation's even more confusing than the impossibility of your powers. You really have a ball bearing stuck in your head?"

Edward sighs, "YES, I really have a ball bearing stuck in my head. Now is there anything else you'd like to know, Mr. Forgetful?"

Seth laughs and shrugs, "Well I'd like to know a lot of things, like what exactly made you and Danna decide to join together to form your little crime fighting team."

Danna sighs. "Now that is a long story. I guess I'd better start from the beginning."


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6: Rage

"Well it all started about two weeks ago, The school basketball team was playing off against the Daryl Gregor team, you know, that private school down by the factory district? Anyway, our team was having a lot of trouble even with Edward's help, the problem wasn't Edward's ball handling skills, though. The other team were just monsters. The ball rarely had a chance to move before one of them would jump up and grab it out of thin air, storm across the field, and dunk it into the hoop before your eyes could catch up to the ball. It went on like this for two periods and the opposing team seemed to be getting agitated. Finally, getting seriously angry at the complete domination, the team captain, Jerry Mathews I believe, punched one of the other team's players right in the face and the player went berserk. He snapped Jerry's right arm in half and slammed his face into the linoleum before slamming his hands to his chest ape style and foaming from the mouth. As soon as the rest of the team charged at him all hell broke lose. It wasn't long before our whole team was injured and the Daryl Gregor team was pinned down by four men each. The game got canceled and the police were called in to investigate."

Edward sighs as the story goes on, "The worst part was our team had to withdraw from the rest of the season; there was no way we could compete with our entire team hospitalized. Anyway, I was heading back from the changing rooms to go home when I remembered that I left my Science binder in the second floor computer labs. I had a master key to the school because the coach always let me lock up after the games for him, so I headed up there quickly to grab it before I went home. Wasn't I surprised when I walked into the lab to find Danna here walking out of a monitor."

Seth's face twists into a look of confusion and he gasps, "Walking out of a monitor, that doesn't make any sense."

Danna laughs and suddenly sticks her hand on one of the video screens in the roller. Her hand presses in slightly, a small portion of it seeming to transform into light, "Don't ask me to explain how. Let's just suffice it to say it's my way of escaping reality. Now for a few moments I was hoping he hadn't seen anything, but with my left foot still inside things were a bit difficult to explain. The fact that he wouldn't stop nagging me about it didn't help matters, so I explained it to him. I thought it would be fun to try intimidating him with threats of jumping out of his computer late at night. You should of seen the look on his face when I mentioned that."

Edward grins. "Don't pay any attention to her, Seth. I wasn't scared for one minute. Naturally, I couldn't let Danna go around thinking she was the only freak in school, and so I put her in place with my awesome sphere controlling skills."

Danna laughs evilly, "As far as super powers are concerned, I give it a four out of ten at most."

Edward gets an angry look on his face and growls, "Yeah, well I give your computer hopping a zero, so there."

Seth holds his hands up, sighing, "Okay okay, back to how you two became the fantastic duo."

Edward grins. "Relax, we're getting to that part. A few days after the game, Daryl Gregor gave out an official apology for what happened blaming the incident on a rogue teacher who'd given the basketball team steroids to boost their performance, and that measures were being taken to prosecute him."

Danna laughs, "Can you believe that? Steroids. Hah! I'd done my fair share of research and that was not steroids. Naturally, I jumped into the police mainframe to learn out what they'd discovered only to find that the records had been deleted. Being the natural snoop that I am, I did manage to discover the name of the teacher who'd been blamed for the incident. Apparently he used to work for a company called Dimenstra-Tek and that Dimenstra-Tek was one of the official sponsors of their school's team. Naturally, I decided that investigating Dimenstra-Tek was the next logical course of action, but I had no way of getting into their mainframe from the outside, so I coaxed sphere master over there into giving me a hand."

Edward smiles. "You should of seen the way I made her beg. I'd already decided to go after hearing her out, but there's just something about a girl on her knees that made me grin and bear it."

Danna screams, "You little shit! I was practically dying trying to convince you, and in the end the best I could get you to agree upon was a test run of your powers to see if we stood a chance. I guess that brings us to the point where we met up with you, Seth."

Seth stares off into space. "I see. So you two are after Dimenstra-Tek as well. They're the ones responsible for Seishero's kidnapping and all this fuss about me being dead."

Edward nods his head slowly and whistles before speaking, "Well then, I guess this test run was a complete success. If I can find out information about my target without even trying, imagine how well I'll do when I am. Don't worry Seth, I've got nothing better to do than help you out. What are friends for? But what are we going to do with you while we plan our attack? We can't exactly have a dead man walking around town."

Danna giggles, "Why doesn't he stay at your place, Edward? Your parents never watch the news, so I doubt they've heard anything. You might want to assume a fake name just to make sure. If they have heard about you they're horrible with faces."

Seth grins and jokes, "Whatever you call me, don't make it Dubby Dub," before suddenly remembering Seishero again and becoming lost in thought.

Edward slaps Seth on the forehead. "Wake up. I have developed the perfect name for you. You shall be Will Smith."

Seth looks at Edward. "Will Smith? Why would you choose a name like that?"

Danna sighs, "You still watch those old pre-plague movies? Those must be 30 years old by now."

Seth looks back and forth between the two, "Uh, you guys lost me. I may be a collector of pre-plague games and such, but I don't really know anything about the movies. Wait a minute... GOD DAMNIT! My entire collection was in the house when it burned down. AUGHH! Can this day get any worse?"

Suddenly, the sounds of police sirens can be heard and a cruiser appears on the view screen behind the roller.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7: 2 teenagers and a man in a bear suit

Danna quickly fiddled with the rollers radio and a broadcast came in from the cruiser.

"I'd like to put out an APB on a giant ball."

"Come again Larry."

"There's a giant iron ball speeding down the road."

Edward suddenly makes the ball roll into a field and hide behind the corn stalks that rise up as the cruiser storms past.

"You know, when a man starts to see giant balls on patrol, it's time to think about early retirement."

"I'm telling you, it's right in front of me... wait, where'd it go. I swear it was there just a minute ago."

"I'm putting in an application to book you some vacation time. You definitely need a break."

Danna turns off the radio as Seth and Edward descend into fits of laughter, "This isn't funny you two, imagine what would of happened if he'd caught us?"

Edward snickers again and takes a deep breath before saying, "Alright, we'll be more careful next time," and then the roller lurches back into motion.

The rest of the trip back to town goes rather uneventfully. The roller storms through the underbrush, killing small plants and horribly mangling the larger ones until it finally comes across and entrance to a tunnel.

Edward guides it in carefully to reveal a poorly lit, old, unstable-looking subway tunnel.

Seth looks around confused, "I thought my memory was back, I don't remember there being a subway in Demstar."

Danna laughs giddily, brushing the sweat off of her forehead as the roller begins shooting down the tunnel like a bullet. "Don't worry about it, this subway was started way back before the plague, and everyone forgot to finish it once the war started. It only has 3 exit points, not including the one Eddy and I made."

Edward yells at Danna without turning around, "Call me sphere master when I'm in costume please, and you're the one who made that exit, I just supplied the explosives and work area. I still can't believe no one noticed that you blew 5 tons of rock up in the middle of town."

Danna laughed, lifting her chin snobbishly, and stated matter of factly, "Of course no one noticed, that website I visited provided all the details I needed to direct the rubble into the subway. I didn't doubt it's credibility for an instant."

Seth glanced down the tunnel on the monitor and saw light shining in from the area ahead, "So where does this entrance you made come out?"

Edward sighed, "Right square in the middle of my basement."

Seth, Edward, and Diana all stepped into the cold, damp, dust-filled basement and looked around as Danna slid a panel over the tunnel leading to the small area where they stored the roller. Edward had removed his ridiculous costume and now wore a brown dress shirt, plaid vest, and black pair of pants.

Seth finally took in what Edward was wearing and giggled, "I don't know what's geekier, the sphere master get up, or what you're wearing right now."

Edward suddenly turned around smiling devilishly and lunged at Seth, knocking him to the ground shouting, "I'll show you who's the geek."

Danna watched in Amusement as Seth and Edward rolled around the basement, making a mess of things, Knocking over tables, and making a lot of noise.

After a minute of this a light turns on and a bushy-gray haired maid dressed in a traditional maid's uniform looks down at them, Edward standing triumphantly over a dazzled Seth before crying, "Master Edward, whatever's going on down here?"

Edward smiles and responds smugly as Seth rises to his feet and dusts himself off. "Nothing big, my friends and I were just playing around. Oh, and on that note inform the others that my friend Seth will be staying with us while his parents are out of town. Are my parents here?"

The maid sighs and gives them a stern look, speaking reproachfully, "They have already left for their trip to Hawaii, they will be gone for the next two weeks. Please try to keep further rough play outside." She then grabs hold of her black and white dress and scurries up into the lobby.

Seth shakes his head and looks toward Danna saying slyly, "I'll say one thing for the dwarf. He may be short but he's certainly tough." before jumping out of the way of Edwards charge causing Edward to trip over a toppled table and slide across the floor.

Edward Rises smiling and shaking his fist at Seth in mock Anger. "One of these days Seth Davis, I'll get you for that. I'm not short damn you!"

Danna laughs and holds up her hand in a motion to stop before finally getting enough air to speak, "As amusing as it is watching you two fight like little kids, I really think we need to start thinking about how we're going to get Seth around town to show us where Mr. Nanami's house is without someone recognizing him."

"I'm not coming out."

"Come on Seth, Edward's taste in clothes isn't that bad."

"I resent that comment."

"I'm not coming out."

"Can we at least see what you look like, I promise I won't laugh."

"I look like a middle aged hobo who skinned a bear for clothes and is being molested by squirrels."

Edward rips open the door to the bathroom and looks at Seth saying excited, "Really? I was going more for the hilly billy down from the country look myself."

Seth is covered from head to toe in fur. A golden furry coat, A pair of wolf's fur trousers. A raccoon cap, a white furry scarf, and one expensive pair of brown boots.

Danna snickers, "You're both wrong, he looks more like big foot than anything else."

Edward laughs, "He doesn't need the clothes to pull off that look."

Seth growls, "Yeah I'm a real animal, but seriously, where did you get all this fur?"

Edward sighs, "It's from my mothers collection, but don't sweat it. No one will ever recognize you in this get up."

Seth frowns and speaks grimly, "Yeah just like no one could ever recognize you in that sphere master get up."

Edward replies in an irritated voice, "Touche, but your opinion doesn't matter. We're going now whether you like it or not."

After almost half an hour of walking, and many, many stares from people they passed on the way there, the trio finally arrives at the Nanami Residence.

The front door was left open a creak and Seth stared at it suspiciously before speaking poorly through the bulky scarf, "I think someones inside, and can I take off these clothes already, it's an inferno in here?"

Edward draws 3 lead balls from his pocket and holds them in his right hand as he opens the door slowly with his left. Seeing no one in the house he steps inside and Danna and Seth follow him, Seth somewhat clumsily.

Danna glances around suspiciously, "I can't help but feel someone's watching us."

Edward nods, "I know what you mean, stay close to me Seth... um, Seth?"

Seth walks up to the room he saw Seishero open just a few days ago on their search for Gregin X. The room is empty except for the computer which is in pretty bad shape. The display case that held the artifacts has been cleaned out, but some glass shards still litter the floor.

Danna immediately walks up to the computer turns it on and crawls inside the broken monitor without a second thought disappearing into a white staticy portal as she does. Seth looks inside the damaged interior of the broken screen, "Are you sure it's safe for her to do that?"

"If I was you, I'd be worried about my own safety."

Seth spins around lost in thought. "What are you talking about Edw- Hiro!"

Seth notices Hiro Moto, who is once again standing between Seth and the exit of this small hidden room.

Hiro looks at Seth for a few moments before saying, "Who are you, and why the hell does everyone know my name? I haven't even been in this stupid country a whole week!"

Seth smiles weekly and his right hand unconsciously drifts to the back of his head before he rips off the hat and scarf, "It's me, Seth. Remember, we met here the other day, you pulled me from my house before it exploded-"

Hiro retorts quickly and angrily, "I know who you are why in hell's name are you wearing such a ridiculous get up? No Matter, tell me what you know about the artifacts that were kept here."

Edward smiles, "I wouldn't call him ridiculous if I was you. This isn't some Anime Convention Mr. Egyptian Wizard."" Edward let's go of the lead balls and they fly through the air toward Hiro who's circlet glows and the balls are deflected into the walls, wedging in half a centimeter. The stones glow again and Hiro fires an orb of concentrated force that barely leaves his hands before flying backward and sending him flying into a wooden chair in the room above.

Edward laughs confidently as he draws the lead balls out of the wall and back into his hand, "Don't sphere the sphere master!"

Hiro roars as he rises to his feet, climbing out from under the wooden remains of a once strong chair. "You are going to burn for that!"

As Hiro points his hand at Edward and the stones on his jewelry begin to glow a powerful voice shouts, "Halt, in the name of Science!" and before Hiro can react a small orb hits him in the back firing out ropes that tie him up and knock him to the ground.

Edward drops the balls thudding to the floor and stares speechless as Science man looks down at him from the top of the stairs. "Oh my God, you, you're really Science Man. In the flesh. This is a ream come true. Can I have your autograph? Just let me find some paper and, I know; you can sign my shirt!"

Science Man looks at Edward slightly disturbed, "Are you alright? You might want to remember to breath and, hey Seth what are you doing here, I thought I left you with Carmen. What is that!"

Science man suddenly points to the broken monitor as Danna sticks her head out of it. "Did I come at a bad time?"

Science man looks around frustrated and finally says, "Okay that's it, all of you are coming with me. Quickly now, the neighbors called the cops reporting 2 teenagers and a man in a bear suit sneaking in here."

Edward screeches, "It's not a bear suit- oh forget it. How are we getting out of here Science Man?"

Science man smiles, "Quickly everyone, to the Science-mobile!"


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8: It may not be the Justice League but it may just get it done

The science-mobile was right out of a cheesy comic book. An orange base with an almost nose-like front combined with jet engine at the back. A Large test-tube-like transparent tank filled with various different coloured liquids sits on the top and the side view mirrors were in the shape of the standard molecular compound diagram.

Seth and Danna carry Hiro to the car while Edward hovers around Science-Man. As soon as all 5 are inside, seat-belts slide down automatically and buckle them in and the engine on the back literally bursts into action, propelling the car down the road at break neck speeds, yet somehow managing to follow the road and avoid crashing.

Hiro struggles pointlessly with the ropes, trying to get free and roars, "When I get out of this, I'm going to kill you all!"

Science-man laughs, a really deep bass laugh and says, "All the more reason to keep you in it. Now, why were you all in that house?"

Hiro snorts angrily and replies in an irritated voice, "I was looking for the missing piece of an artifact that I took from there. I doubt you'd know anything about, so if you wouldn't mind taking a second out of your pointless musings and letting me out of this death machine I might forgive you."

Seth and Danna look at each other, toward Edward who seems to be lost in a daydream, back to each other, than toward Science-man before saying in Unison, "We'd heard there were blue prints of a Dimenstra-Tek facility held there."

Science man suddenly brings the car to a screeching halt, the massive deceleration causing Hiro to turn green and if it wasn't for the seat-belts they'd off all flown forward. Now that the cars stopped their eyes can finally make sense of the images outside the windows. The group is no longer inside the city and are on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere.

Science-man looks intently at Seth, "What do you have to do with Dimenstra- Tek?"

Seth grunts annoyed, sick of explaining himself and not entirely sure of why he was doing anything before saying confidently, "You really need to calm down. Dimenstra-Tek is responsible for completely ruining my life. They had a friend of mine's father kidnapped and were forcing him to make some freak drug called Gregin X. My cousin got a small dose of this and now he's gone of to join some elitist organization because the drug is probably killing him. I helped my friend escape from them because they needed her as a hostage to force her dad to work on the drug. When I stopped by my house to grab some supplies and get the hell away from here they ambushed us. She was captured and if the nut in the ropes over there hadn't pulled me out of my house at the last minute they'd of killed me too! So I am the last person who would be helping those bastards!"

Hiro twisted his face into a look of mock sadness and cried in a whiny voice, "Oh boo hoo, little Seth can't stay the hell out of trouble. Can we get back to my problem?"

Danna looks at Hiro, contemplating something, and then says, "This artifact wouldn't happen to be called the key of Cortex would it? I was reading up on the Doctors research files while downloading the blue prints and it said something about having potential applications to project Gate or something. Anyway, they sent a piece of it to the lab he's being held at. It's probably still there."

Science-Man has been quietly contemplating everything he's heard when his eyes suddenly burst open and he cries out, "Wait, you better not be planning to try and rescue them. You wouldn't stand a chance. I'm not going to let you get yourselves killed."

Seth yells back, suddenly clenching his fists in anger, "You just expect me to sit back and let them use Seishero! I'd try and save her even if my only option was kicking down the front door and taking her back by force! I can hardly go to the police for assistance, what do you think I'd say: Hey there, ex dead boy here needs your help to rescue a damsel in distress. The police are probably in their pocket anyway. I thought you hated Dimenstra-Tek, you of all people should understand how I feel."

Science-Man looks into Seth's eyes and Stares intently looking for some sign of doubt or faltering and then sighs, "If you're really serious about this, there's no way I could stop you if I tried. I'll help you, but only if you have a plan."

Hiro sighs and shakes his head, slightly unsettled by Seth's words before saying, "I suppose I might consider helping you all if you'd kindly remove this restraining device, I'm beginning to get a cramp."

Seth began fidgeting with Seishero's student card, "Someone release him please, he's beginning to get on my nerves. How does this card work again, he wanted us to contact him as soon as we got the blue prints."

Danna takes the card from Seth and fidgets with it like a new toy, "Let me see! Hmm, where'd you get this, the design is absolutely amazing. It appears that there's no response from the other end. Maybe something happened to his card."

Seth sighs, "I just hope there isn't any other bad news."

"Okay everyone, here's the plan. Hiro and I will sneak around the building planting radio jammers in key locations for remote activation. This will be possible thanks to his ever so useful invisibility spell, You think you could teach me how to do that. Anyways after we plant the devices we'll make our way to the Master Security room where I'll take control of the computers and activate the radio jammers. This will prevent them from communicating and gives us free control of all the doors. I'll locate Seishero and her dad and send you a specially marked map on the personal organizers each of you has. That's where Seth and Edward come in. Hiro will make his way to the research lab to get the Cortex sphere while you two sneak into the holding area wearing guard uniforms courtesy of Science-Man. These should allow you to go wherever you want in the midst of all the madness I'll be causing. Once you've got Seishero and her dad, make your way to the roof where Science-Man will arrive with our get away ride. Hiro's elected to escape on his own so don't worry about him." Danna takes a deep breath and looks at the others who are gathered around her in a circle taking notes, "Are there any questions?"

Edward holds up a blue device with a small monitor, keypad, and digital pen, "What's this doo-hicky called again?"

Danna's head sinks and she sighs before saying, "For the sixth time, that's a personal organizer, and take good care of it because it's the only way we can stay in contact once we're inside. Now, we're doing this at nine o'clock tonight so get some sleep now."

Celest looked over the four squad members she'd been assigned. Cory was standing ready, even a little excited about his first mission. He'd been given the name Eternal for Solar missions. The others she wasn't as familiar with.

The first was known as ghost, he possessed the ability to project himself up to one hundred meters and specialized in reconnaissance and support.

The second went by the name Wizard, which might be considered misleading since he didn't have an ounce of magical talent. Instead, he specialized in all manners of electronic devices, from remote control attack drones, to top notch security systems.

Firedancer was the third member of the groups codename. Just like Cory, this was her first mission as a Solar. Unlike Cory, she'd had months of preparation and training, but still no experience.

All in all Celest was satisfied with the group, they could definitely handle the task. "Alright everyone, you've been briefed. The operation will commence at twenty-two-hundred hours tonight. Don't be late."


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9: The rebirth of a spirit

Seth and Edward walked through the doors of the Dimenstra-Tek "Medical and rehabilitation" research facility. So far, the operation had gone off without any problems. The security system was down and the guards were running around like chickens with their heads cut off.

Edward and Seth hurried down the hall wearing standard Dimenstra-Tek security uniforms consisting of blast resistant personal armor and gas mask and night-vision equipped helmets. A slight problem in their original plan had arisen now. In their haste to rescue both Seishero and her father they had assumed they'd be stored in the same general area. Therefore it was a bit of a shock when Danna messaged them on the p. o.'s telling them they were on opposite sides of the building.

Still, it wasn't a terrible disaster. Dr. Nanami was currently assigned to a research lab, the same lab Hiro was heading toward. Hiro had sent them a terribly irritated message agreeing to get Dr. Nanami away from any Security forces but stated firmly that he would have to get to the roof on his own.

That left the only matter in Seth's hands freeing Seishero, and Edward and he were on their way to her now. Following the course set out by Danna they were able to move quickly and encounter on a handful of guards who had more important things to do than interrogate their "fellow" guards.

Finally they reached the prison area, and Seishero's cell, only to encounter a familiar face. Standing guard, still dressed as corporate agent like as usual. Agent Thomson was not however carrying the usual pistol he'd had in their previous encounters, maybe they'd run out of stock after the others were destroyed. He was still as intimidating as ever despite this.

Seth froze in his tracks desperately thinking of a way around this and then realized Edward had already walked up to Thomson.

Edward went casually as he'd done with the previous normal guards they'd encountered and said just as casually, "Sir, there are intruders in the base, the forces near the master security room are requesting assistance, they've been overcome."

Agent Thomson look at Edward analyzing him for a moment before saying, "I don't recognize you. Take off your helmet."

Seth quickly runs up to Edward and starts pulling him away, "I'm sorry Mr. Thomson, he's new here, we'll go get someone else."

As soon as Seth speaks Agent Thomson's eyes lock onto him and his face twists into an unnatural smile. "Stop Right there. I have orders to kill you where you stand Seth Davis, and I'll capture your little friend when I'm done."

Edward Rips the uniforms gloves from his hands and 6 lead balls fall out and immediately storm toward Thomson at almost 50 miles an hour as he shouts, "You shouldn't of called me little!"

Thomson doesn't even look at Edward, much less reply as he quickly moves his hands, grabbing all 6 balls out of mid flight. He then crushes them into dust and charges down the hall, lead dust particles fluttering toward the ground in his wake as Edward stares speechless muttering to himself.

Seth jumps away from Edward as Thomson punches Ed in the chest, sending him flying 6 feet down the hall landing delirious on his back. Seth tries to remove the pistol stored in the uniform holster, but Thomson's too fast sending it flying down the hall in the opposite direction of Edward with a simple flick of his wrist.

Seth stares at Thomson who seems more terrifying than ever as he prepares for the kill. Seth's emotions go out of control, thoughts racing through his head, memories bursting to the surface of his mind, some of things he'd done, and others of two strangers he'd never met, and then Thomson struck.

There was a brief moment of intense pain as Thomson's fist cracked open Seth's visor and rammed into his face followed immediately by another feeling of intense ... life as every molecule in Seth's body fills with energy. Thomson's fist passes through Seth as if his body were made of air as Seth lights up like a blue star and bursts into a cloud of blue energy and flies all around the hall.

Thomson looks around confused as Edward rises to his feat clutching his gut and shouts, "What the hell did you do to Seth?"

Thomson stares at Edward who has now removed 2 more balls from his pockets and is holding them in the air in front of him, trying to ignore the pain in his stomach and focus.

Seth watches everything around him trying to comprehend what is going on and what's happened to him. One moment he had been a perfectly solid normal human being, and the next he was... well he wasn't quite sure what he was now. He is somehow able to see and hear everything around him even though he has no eyes or ears, but everything is strange. Some odd sounds he's never heard before are constantly being made by everything, and his vision seemed to be seeing two images at once, overlapping them into a difficult to comprehend mess. There is the standard full color image he was used to, and then there is an eerie ghostly vision where nothing looked solid and the only thing that stands out clearly is Edward, There is absolutely no sign of Thompson on this vision.

Seth tries to move his hand to slap himself but finds his hand no longer exists. This was no time for him to be admiring the view, he has to find a way to help Edward. Seth knows that his entire body was part of him, but it is different and he has no idea how to control it. So he tries everything. It's rather difficult to explain how one learns to move when their nervous system is replaced by a strange system of mental impulses but suffice it to say, Seth finds he is able to will his body to take form.

Now while Seth had been busy determining the difference between up and down, Edward had been fighting furiously trying to stop Thomson from, well, doing whatever it was Thomson was trying to do. Needless to say, Thomson didn't take kindly to Edward interfering. Edward was smart about his attacks this time around. Instead of firing his last balls right at Thomson's chest where he could easily crush them, he circles one around behind Him and strikes at him hard while the other dances around in front of Thomson keeping him occupied, constantly avoiding his grasp. As the ball strikes over and over again Thomson's skin begins to peel away revealing his mechanical structure beneath it. This surprises Edward slightly but he continues his attack regardless.

Thomson was beginning to grow irritated. These balls were doing minimal damage to his mechanical frame, but they were doing damage none the less. A lucky shot and he might actually be defeated. Trying to stop the balls themselves was proving to be more pointless by the minute. He'd have to pause his search for Seth and take care of the pesty balls source. A young fool who could barely fit into the security uniform he falsely wore.

Thomson charges toward Edward once again as a misty form suddenly starts to materialize between him and Edward. The form has purple eyes on a flat featureless face with no mouth or nose. The hair is arranged in around 12 large strands combed to the back leaving its forehead bare. A strange blue mist constantly swirled around it, concentrated into large ring around the wrists. It's body simply ended at it's waste, the mist trailing off in a tail like shape for a little farther. The form was also almost completely transparent.

Thomson continues forward ignoring this new figure as if it were nothing. He suddenly stops in his tracks as he comes in contact with the two rings, a massive stream of electricity lurches between them lighting him up like a light bulb before Thomson falls face first into the ground, Edward having driven a sphere through the back of his head.

The new misty figure suddenly glows white and reforms into Seth, still fully garbed in the security uniform, broken visor and all. The wound to his face from Thomson's fist is gone, but his skin is now extremely pale and sweaty.

Seth looks down at himself, kneeling before the now sparking and unresponsive Thomson, and sighs, "What's wrong with me?"

Edward laughs and pats Seth on the back before pulling him to his feet. "Well Seth, Welcome to the freak club."

Seth looks over at Edward sadly, "This is no time to be joking. We need to figure out what the hell just happened to me."

Edward sighs and walks toward Seishero's cell saying, "Can we worry about your mid-teenage crisis after we rescue Seishero and get out of here alive?"

Seth lowers his head sulking and then raises it up in an oddly depressed to happy voice, "Is there really a freak club, with meetings and T-shirts and stuff?"

Edward laughs and says, "Don't be stupid," as he opens the door to Seishero's cell.

Seishero turns to look at them as she sits on the floor holding Chibi-Miloe in a tight embrace. Her face lights up as she notices Seth's face and she leaps toward him hugging his legs and cries out in joy, "Dubby Dub! You came to rescue me!"

Edward snorts and looks toward Seth questioningly and says, "Dubby dub?"

Seth sighs and puts his one hand on Seishero's shoulder comfortingly and the other to his forehead cutting it on the broken visor and then putting it in his mouth before removing his helmet and saying, "Edward, just shut up. Seishero, we really need to get out of here as fast as possible," before looking toward his personal organizer and then saying in a pondering tone, "I wonder how the others are doing."


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10: Cyber Battle

Getting inside had been too easy, a quick spell from Hiro and the entire security crew fled the room screaming in illusionary pain. It just went to show how dangerous Hiro was, but he isn't important now. Now Danna is in her world. As far as security systems go, the defenses on this system are impressive. Luckily for her, most conventional security measures are run off of an operating system, and this one is no exception. Danna simply accesses the data directly and replaces the system with her own personal creation.

Needles to say, the technicians who were franticly trying to regain control of the system have no idea what to think when their operating system is suddenly replaced by something called Danna+.

It isn't long at all before Danna has full control of everything, Cameras, doors, wall mounted anti intruder missles. Isn't interconnectivity a lovely thing?

The first twenty minutes are spent keeping the security forces busy, leading them out of the paths of Hiro and Seth, but then things get a lot more interesting.

At first, Danna takes the van for what it was pretending to be, a Dimenstra-Tek security van, requesting permission to enter the grounds. This is good Danna thinks, it means the outside hasn't realized the facility is under attack, and she wants to keep it that way. So in they come, moving rather slowly until suddenly a fireball flies forth from the passenger side window and melts the camera she'd been using to monitor their progress.

Almost no time passes before she detects the log in. Someone actually bypassed her security wall and is attempting to take control of the network, that definatly isn't something Danna can allow.

Celestia rushes through the facility, her map constantly displayed on a wrist mounted holographic projector. She orders ghost to locate an out of the way computer terminal and watches as he and wizard quickly make their way there.

Wizard is excited. It isn't everyday he gets the chance to take on a Dimenstra-Tek system. Once he gets jacked in, there will be nothing they can do to stop him from completing his mission, or so he thought. As far as he is concerned, the other members of this team will be useless. Wizard looks down at the three tank-like machines moving down the hall beside him. They are all the assistance he'd ever needed.

Ghost is a jumpy, paranoid person, which is kind of odd considering he is probably more frightening than anything he'll ever encounter, of course, he scares himself sometimes as well. Ghost is just under 35 and already has a pure slate of gray hair without a trace of color left. His left eye is almost twice the size of his right, and he walks with a large hunch, which only surves to emphasize the large hump on his back. His skin is as pale as his name, and is slimey, with a very faint tint of green.

Ghost really couldn't care less for Wizard. Wizard is older than any other solar agent, and he barely looks it. Of course, there isn't any particular age category he does look like. The entire left half of his body is pure machine. From the robotic eye, various ports, recievers, and transmitters on his head, to his robotic arm and leg, he's everything technophobes had feared for the last hundred years.

Still, a job is a job, and ghost had worked with less desireable partners in the past.

Wizard walks up to the closest terminal as soon as he enters the dimly lit office and orders two of his drones to stand guard in the hall as the third converts into a tool box filled with a wide variety of tools and adapters.

The system loaded up, skipping the usual startup screens and goes right to a pink screen that has the word Danna+ in chrome silver displayed diagnolly across the screen and nothing else. No log in screen, no response to input from the keyboard, the mouse pointer didn't even show up on the screen.

Wizard has to admit he wasn't expecting this, but he doesn't have time to find a way in. He'll have to take a risk and hook himself up to the network directly, just as he's done countless times before.

Wizard unplugs the fiber optic cable that connects the computer to the rest of the network and plugs it into a port on his own skull.

What he finds once he's hooked up is a bigger surprise than anything else he'd ever encountered. Every terminal on the network has been locked out, but are still running hundreds of background programs. All of them being controlled by some sort of translation matrix that is moving all over the network. There is actually something inside the system giving orders. Wizard heads straight for this source, attempting to take control away from it and make use of it's own functions.

Danna is impressed, and extremely irritated. This hacker not only knew how to access a network and bypass it's security, but he is also able to locate her and is trying to use her own programs against her.

Danna is good too though. She's already zeroed in on the terminal he is accessing the network from and is about to overload a gas pipe and knock out his connection when a devilish idea comes to her. Since this hacker is so good, he must have a real "thing" for machines, it seems only fitting that he have a chance to see what it's like on the inside.

Wizard is begging to grow extremely annoyed. The matrix had suddenly callapsed leaving him with nothing but a huge some of incomprehensible data to sift through for the systems security controls.

Suddenly his attention is drawn back to the real world. A second terminal suddenly lights up and security footage starts playing on the monitor.

Wizard quickly unplugs himself and rushes over.

As soon as he touches the mouse the word Gotcha takes over the screen and two hands reach out of a white portal and pull him inside.

Danna smiles triumphantly at the confused face of Wizard, staring at the voidlike realm dumbfounded. Data flows in every direction like currents in a lake. Danna sais calmy, "It's beutiful isn't it," and then pushes Wizard into one of the streams, his body flowing away rapidly like the rest of the data.

Ghost stares stunned at the terminal. One minue Wizard had been standing there, the next he was gone. Ghost immediatly projects himself around the base until he locates Celest, his astral form taking the appearence of what he'd look like if he wasn't horribly disfigured that he loved so much.

Celest looks at him angrily, "What's taking so long Ghost, you should of reported five minutes ago. How's wizard doing?"

Ghost squeels, a high pitched squeeky excuse for a voice, "Wizard is gone, he just dissapeared. I think the computer's security did something to him."

Celest pulls on her hair in frustration for a moment before regaining her composure and calmy replying, "Don't worry about it. Get out of the facility and head to the van, get it ready to leave as soon as we're done here. We'll just have to do this the hard way."


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11: Who will be our Hiro?

Hiro was annoyed. It was bad enough that he had to help them get in to the facility, and let me tell you maintaining a field of invisibility around two people for that long was no easy task, but no, they just couldn't be content with that. Now he has to free a scientist and help him escape too. Hiro had half a mind to just leave him here, but Hiro'd said he'd help, and he wasn't the type to break his word.

The lab was a fairly high class place, work benches lined the room from wall to wall, with aisles for walking between every bench, all sized exactly the same. Some benches had electronic devices, others had a near endless supply of drugs and chemicals.

Hiro located the small sphere called the Dagon Core he'd come here to get almost immediately. It was just sitting unattended on a desk near a group of scientists arguing over the hacking into the base's security. Hiro "liberated" the core without anyone noticing.

Then came the matter of Dr. Nanami. Hiro quickly realized he had no idea who Dr. Nanami was, or any idea what he looked like. Luckily for him, it appeared to be standard policy to issue all employees name tags and so Hiro began his long search for Dr. Nanami.

After half an hour of searching and many close calls of people almost bumping into his invisible self, Hiro finally located Dr. Nanami working inside a small room with two guards standing watch outside of it.

Hiro walked behind Dr. Nanami and whispered, "I wouldn't make a sound if I were you. Seishero should be on her way out of here as we speak, if you want to escape as well, I suggest you do exactly as I say, now stand up."

Dr. Nanami rose to his feet slowly and muttered, "Are you a friend of Seth's?"

A strange invisible force surrounded Dr. Nanami making him invisible as well as Hiro grabbed onto him, "I'm currently assisting him in his mad plan to free you, but I am by no means his friend. Now, start walking out of here slowly and don't make another sound."

Hiro and Dr. Nanami managed to slip out of the lab without being noticed and get into the hall.

Hiro dropped his field of invisibility as soon as the two of them were no longer in sight of the labs windows and leaned against the wall, obviously tired from keeping the spell going as long as he did.

Dr. Nanami stared at Hiro, Seeing him for the first time and said, "You're just a boy too, Sorry, What do we do next?"

Hiro handed Dr. Nanami his personal organizer with a map of the fastest way to the roof highlighted and began to speak. Before he could mutter a word he suddenly jumped in front of Dr. Nanami, stones glowing. A moment later the wall beside them exploded sending shrapnel flying against an invisible wall of force Hiro had projected.

After the dust cleared a brown haired girl in a red Kimono looked at them coughing and sneezing. "Like, wow, I totally didn't expect anyone to be on the other side. Which way is the research lab?"

Hiro's face looked like it was about to pop a vein as he clenched his fists in irritation and mumbled, "10 more seconds and it wouldn't of been my problem, just 10 more seconds."

The girl stared at Hiro for a moment, holding a strange braided-leather cylinder in each hand and was taken totally by surprise when Hiro suddenly blasted her away with an orb of sheer force.

Hiro grabbed a confused Dr. Nanami and pulled him away from the hole in the wall as a blast of fire comes through melting the wall they'd been in front of just a moment before into a smoldering mess.

Hiro started running down the hall with Dr. Nanami in tow as he heard someone jump through the hole behind him. Suddenly an explosion rocked the wall in front of him and he once again threw up a wall of force.

Hiro stared at the two figures who step through the hole and recognized them both instantly, "You're the two from the hospital."

Celest and Cory stood in front of Hiro as the brown haired girl stood behind them.

Celest looked at Hiro for a moment, "Yes, I don't believe we've been formally introduced. Now this is interesting, Dr. Nanami is with you. If you surrender him quietly we can forget you were ever here."

Hiro smiled nervously, "What's so important about him, if you want a scientist there's a whole lab full of them down the hall."

Cory glared at Dr. Nanami angrily and shouted, "You're the one who developed the compound aren't you? You're the reason I'm being slowly eaten alive by the Gregin X, aren't you?"

Dr. Nanami stared at Cory, "What are you talking about, I've never given you the Chemical, and you'd be dead already if it was going to kill you."

Cory laughed, "Even if you didn't give it to me, it somehow got into the sewer system." Cory then glanced at Hiro annoyed and resumed speaking,"I guess Seth and Seishero asked you to rescue him didn't they, too weak to do it themselves. You'll have to tell him I'm sorry."

Hiro looked around around quickly calculating the best way to escape. "I'm afraid I'll have no reason to say that." Hiro's stones glowed white once again and Celest, Cory, and the brown haired girl all grabbed their heads screaming in illusionary pain as Hiro and Dr. Nanami started to flee. Dr. Nanami looked back at Cory concerned but continued to run.

Celest closed her eyes and lowered her hands, barely able to focus with all the pain and chanted quietly, "Forces of truth and cleansing kind, I conjure a mist to clear our minds."As Celest finished chanting a pentagram appeared in the air above them and a white mist poured out entering into the ears and noses of the three Solar members.

The pain was instantly gone and Celest rose to her feet, "Firedancer, pursue Dr. Nanami. eternal and I will capture the research mainframe."

Cory looked at Celest angered as the brown haired hurl ran after Hiro and asked, "Why did you send her?"

Celest sighed, "I know this is personal for you, But you're the only one can can capture the research mainframe without destroying it now that Wizard is gone."

Hiro and Dr. Nanami had made little progress. In their haste to escape , Hiro had made a wrong turn and they had been forced to backtrack quite a way. In this panic, Hiro's body had been completely consumed by the need to flee, causing him to forget how easily he could of abandoned Dr. Nanami a moment ago.

Firedancer was having a lot more luck. Having contacted ghost for assistance she had received directions to their location until he reached the limit of his projection and she wasn't letting walls slow her down.

After only four minutes fire dancer had caught up to them. This time, Hiro turned to face her. She smiled at him, holding the leather handles still, 2 whips of pure flame extending from them to the ground. "So what's a cute guy like you doing in a dangerous place like this?"

Hiro looked rather perplexed. "I could ask you the same question, However, I'd rather not babble on until security arrives."

Firedancer laughed, "So Serious, I like that, where are you going in such a hurry?"

Seth, Edward, and Seishero ran around a corner and stopped dead in their tracks as they saw Hiro and Firedancer staring each other down.

Fire dancer glanced around as Dr. Nanami noticed Seishero and ran toward her, causing Firedancer to suddenly flare up her whips and jump into the wall to avoid incinerating him. This spooked him in the causing him to back into a wall as a mechanical fist punched through it and imploded his skull. This sent him flying to the the ground as the rubble of the wall buried him. A Human shaped robot with a rapidly sparking head stepped through muttering, "Kill Seth Davis." In a rapidly altering version of Thomson's voice.

Hiro stared at it horrified, "Demenstra-Tek built this!"

Firedancer looked at it a look of extreme anger consuming her face, and shouted, "You made me fail my mission you overgrown piece of tin!"

Thomson's quickly looked at everyone in the hall until he spotted Seth and than lunged at him as Firedancer screamed, "Don't ignore me tin man!" and unleashed a massive blast of fire at him from her two "whips". When the flames cleared nothing but ashes and smoldering metal were left of Thomson and The rubble that buried Dr. Nanami.

Seishero stared at the scene speechless and muttered, "Daddy." before falling to her knees in tears.

Danna walked out of an empty office annoyed, the computer showing the typical Danna+ screen. "What are you all still standing around here for? Demenstra-Tek security van's are surrounding the building as we speak. We have to leave now!"

Firedancer looked around her nose fidgeting erratically and sighed, "You guy's don't mind if I leave with you do you?"

Seth looked at Hiro and asked, "Who is she?" before kneeling beside Seishero and putting his hand on her shoulder, with no idea how to comfort her.

Hiro shook his head in frustration. "I have no idea, she came here with your cousin and that Witch from the Hospital."

Seth glared at Firedancer, "One of Solar's dogs then? Why the hell should we take you with us."

Firedancer pulled a knife from her pocket and drove it through her left palm.

Seth looked at her disturbed, "Um, masochistic tendencies aren't exactly a trustworthy trait."

Firedancer pulled a small chip from the tip of the knife, "This is the identification chip I was given when I joined Solar, without it I'm a rogue agent. I was already on bad terms with them, this failure might just push them overboard on me."

Danna sighed, "If it'll get us out of here before we're all dead let's just take her with us."

Seishero looked up, wiping the tears from her eyes and sniveling, "Chibi- Miloe said we can trust her."

Seth helped Seishero to her feet and sighed, "Fine, let's just get going."

A few minutes later they all arrived on the roof to find a giant blimp waiting for them, moving with a strange bubble jet propulsion. The plank had been lowered to reveal Science Man in full costume staring down at them. "Hurry up and get in we have to leave now."

Hiro looked at the blimp nervously as the others boarded it and muttered, "I'm definitely not riding on that. Be seeing you all." before he disappears and the sound of footsteps heading toward the edge of the roof can be heard. Once everyone's on board the blimp takes off full speed blasting past the badly organized security forces below them.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12: State of affairs

Seth looks around the blimp curiously, without straying from Seishero's side, as Science man looks everyone over, his eyes jumping from face to face, taking in the whole of the group that had gathered here. "It would appear things did not go as you planned at all."

Seth's eyes glance sharply at Firedancer. "It would of been okay if Solar hadn't shown up, because of them, Seishero's father-"

Firedancer shoots back, cutting him off, "Don't blame your inability to protect him from that freak robot on me."

Science-Man, finally taking note of firedancer looks at her sceptically and asks, "Who are you anyway?"

Firedancer turns back to Science-Man, and bows politely. "I am Amy Kurosaki. An Ex-Solar member code name firedancer."

Science-man sighs, "You people really know how to get yourselves into trouble don't you? What are you going to do now?"

Seth looks at Seishero protectively. "I'd like to get as far away from Demenstra-Tek as possible. I want to try to live a normal life again, where Seishero isn't in danger."

Firedancer hears this and laughs haughtily, stretching her arms casually, and replies to Science-man calmly. "I've got a fair bit of cash saved up, I might travel for a while, and see the world. Maybe you could hook me up with some alternate Identity, you seem like the geeky type."

Science-man coughs at this statement and releases another sigh, muttering, "Nothing but trouble, the whole lot of you."

Edward takes a moment to stop staring at Science-man entranced and suck up to him. "I apologize if my friends upset you sir, please don't think badly of us. Danna and I are going to stay here, we don't really have any traceable connection with Demenstra-Tek and it doesn't make any sense to just get up and leave."

Danna pats Science-Man on the back smiling, and giggles, "Chill out S-man and live a little. I've got a little gift for you." Danna throws a disk to Science-Man. "That disk has all the project data from the lab, I tried going through it myself but It's really boring."

Science-man smiles at the disk for a moment, his imagination taking off before sighing sadly, "It's a shame none of this can be used in a court, but it may prove useful for tracking down some of their smaller operations. I'll see what I can do for you all."

Outside the blimp suddenly lands in the middle of the street, wheels appearing from the bottom and contacting the ground as the balloon is drawn into the roof to create the outside appearence of a city bus. The bus turns into a parking garage and goes down the basement levels and through a holographic wall. The wall seals up behind them. A moment later they pull into one of Science-man's hideouts in the city.  
Science-man turns on another computer and connects to his network, "The problem with getting away from Dimensta-Tek is the organizations everywhere. They're firmly rooted in all English speaking nations, and their intelligence network covers the entire planet."

Seth throws his hands up in the air exasperated, "There has to be someplace where they won't find us."

Science-man frowns. "If you stay in one place long enough, they will find you. There might be one place they can't act though. Holm state is an extremely Christian state, perfectly tolerant of outsiders who don't publically oppose these beliefs though. They are however extremely opposed to large corporations and government influence in their little state, they say it degrades family values. Dimenstra-Tek has never been able to become established there. This won't completely prevent them from mobilizing a strike force, but it'll certainly make things more difficult. The capitol, Proxy I believe, is the most difficult place for them to deploy."

Seth listens intently to every word and suddenly jumps at the mention of Proxy. "My dad lives there!"

Science-man looks nervous, his voice taking an apprehensive tone as he responds, "I see... that could make things more complicated."

Seishero perks up smiling, "We can stay with Dubby-Dub's daddy."

Seth looks at her sadly. "I don't think it's that easy..."

Science-man suddenly smiles. "Actually, that may be an excellent plan. If your father hasn't been informed of your "death" yet, that would give you a safe place to stay once you get there."

Seth frowns in a dissaproving way. "Since it takes 3 weeks for him to check his phone messages, and he never watches the news, I doubt he's heard by now."

Science-man nods several times and smacks his clenched fist into his palm. "I suppose we have a lot of work to do."

A balding man wearing dirty clohes laying on a sofa finally wakes up rather irritated. His phone had been ringing non stop for the last 2 hours. He'd tried to ignore it for the first hour, and eventually fell asleep. This was the third time it had woken him up and he finally decided he had two options, pick up the phone, or unplug it. So the man crawled to his feet, taking care to step over the old pizza boxes, instant noodle cups, and papers scattered around the room, and make his way to the phone.

"Hello there, Aren Davis residence, what is so bloody important you'd keep calling every 15 seconds for the past two hours?"

"Dad! I finally got through, I was starting to get worried, have you been paying attention to the news?"

Aren's face contorts into a minor twinge of guilt before he replies, "Not recently, does it have to do with why you're calling me?"

Seth's voice speaks the phone again, "If you had you might of noticed some terrorists blew our city block up and a mass murderer was running around downtown. IT was all over the news down here. We were all out when it happened, but we've got no house for the time being. Mom and sis are staying with a friend, but they've barely got enough room for those two. I was wondering if I could stay with you for the time being."

Aren Davis stands still, silent for a moment, taking this information all in and letting it settle before speaking again, "I see, I suppose I could do that. Things are really getting nuts in that town aren't they? Can I speak to your mother?"

"Sure, Just a minute. Mom! He wants to talk to you."

The sound of a second reciever being picked up is heard as Mrs. Davis' voice comes over the phone. "Aren, you there?"

Aren tenses up slightly, gripping the phone a bit more tightly. "Hey Lin, how are you holding up?"

"Oh it's just awful, There's nothing left of the house. Police are everywhere trying to figure out how all this happened. I should be okay though. Jody is playinh with some friends. She seems to think this is all a game."

"Seth seemed calm over the phone, is he doing alright?"

"Yeah, he's a real pillar of support right now, but he should get out of this town for a while to relax. I'd leave myself, but I can't just quit my Job."

"Don't worry about it. I've got space over here. Do you need me to come pick him up?"

"He said not to worry about it, he'll take the train. Do you need any time to prepare? The sooner he gets out of this place the better."

"This place is a bit messy, but he come anytime he wants."

"Thanks. There's a train out tommorrow. Oh and there's one other thing. I hate to be a burdon on you but Seth was hoping he could bring a friend with him. One of the neighbours Kids. Oh it's awful, they were both home when the fire started. The poor thing has nowhere to go."

"I suppose I can make room for two until things settle down. Tell Seth it'll be nice to see him again. I only wish it was under better circumstances."

"Thanks again. I'm really sorry about this."

"Don't be, it's not your fault. Just take care of yourself. Goodbye."

"Bye."

Aren hangs up the phone, a large tension seeming to lift. Then he looks down at the room and sighs, "I suppose I should at least try and clean up."

Seth hangs up the reciever, sweat covering his face as Scince-man closes the program to shift his voice to sound like his mother.

Edward giggles, "Yeah, he's a real pillar of support right now."

Seth combines a sigh and a growl, "I had to say something. It worked so shut up."

Science-man shifts his glasses, having changed out of his super hero costume. "It would appear he accepted your story. I have the train tickets prepared. My assistant Carmen will assist you in getting a disguise. As long as you're in Demstar you are still not safe."

Edward gets out of the rolling chair he was sitting in and looks up at Science-man hopefully. "So. S-man. What do you say about teaming up with me. You can be the hero and I'll be your side kick."

Science-man looks annoyed. "I think you should get this notion of being a vigilante out of your head. This isn't a good way of life. If it weren't for personal reason's, I never would have taken up the cape."

Danna walks in annoyed. "Edward, I thought I was your side kick?"

Edward shakes his head and replies. "You can't be a proper side kick. Science-man, I can see where you're coming from but, I'm not going to stop now. I think I'll train a bit more before going out again though. Now, a proper sidekick has to be there, side by side, with the hero. I watch your back you watch mine."

Science man grumbles, "That comic book ideology of yours will be your undoing someday."

Danna yawns, "Well then Science-man, we should probably head home. It might get unusual if Edward and I sleep through school tommorrow."

Science-man nods, "Alright. I'll have Carmen give you a ride. Seth, I'd tell you to pack, but I realize all of your possesions burned down with your house. You should get some sleep, there's a long train ride tommorrow."

The Scene, a train, one seat. A boy in a baggy hoody and pair of blue jeans sits staring idly out the window. His toque and designer glasses with diskman and headphones giving him a typical getto rapster wannabe look. The clinical orange seats drawing away from this image to create a mundane feeling.

The girl sitting next to him doesn't need much help, wide straw hat, short black hair, above average looks that aren't brought out by the bland gray flowered dress she wears. Her eyes hidden behind a pair of black sunglasses.

The boy sighs, relief evident in his voice. "Looks like we're finally out of Rohndor state. I guess the worst part is finally behind us. Maybe we should take off these disguises now."

The black haired girl pulls a small camera from the pink purse hanging from her shoulder, "We should take pictures first!"  
The toqued lad sighs, "I really don't see the point, but if you want to Seishero it's okay."

The black haired girl jumps to her feet and twirls around gleefully shouting, "Me first."

The boy stands up, "Okay I wonder what my dad will say when we show up. Okay Seishero, smile for the camera."

Seishero smiles as the boy takes 3 pictures before running up to him and grabbing the camera, "Dubby Dub is next!"

The boy sighs again, this time exasperated, "How many times do I have to tell you my name isn't Dubby Dub. I'll only let you take my picture if you start calling me Seth."

Seishero smiles and snaps a picture of Seth's streigned face giggling, "Okay Dub- Seth. I'm going to have to call you that in front of your daddy aren't I? I guess I'll have to get used to it. Make a happy face!"

Seth smiles as Seishero takes his picture again. "Okay Seishero, let's go change, we want my dad to be able to recognize me. I guess you're pretty much stuck with that though. It's a shame we had to cut your hair."

Toqueless, headphoneless, and 2 eyed Seth steps off of the train, people basically rushing past him in the crowded train station. Seishero joins him as Seth scans the crowd of people looking for his father's face. A voice suddenly sings out, "Seth, over here."

Seth looks towards the voice and spots Mr. Davis holding a cart in one hand and waving to them with the other. "Just throw your things in the cart."

Seth glances from Seishero to the cart and mutters, "I forgot to warn you, my dad's a bit eccentric. Let's go."

Seishero looks at the cart smiling, "It looks fun. I like your dad."

Seth carries a backpack, and Seishero has a small suitcase. They both quickly make their way to the man. "Hey dad, sorry you had to bring the cart, but as you can see we packed light. Most of our things were lost in the fire."

Seth's father laughs, his hand behind his head. "You know me, always doing unnescesary things." He then looks Seishero up and down before practically jumping out of his body. "Wait a minute, your mom never said your friend was a girl!"  



End file.
